Before the Second World War, both 14 and 15 ton all-steel mineral wagons had been built by Charles Roberts and the Butterly Company as replacements for wooden coal wagons. Some were bought by private owners but, along with the rest, they were requisitioned by the government on the outbreak of war. The Ministry of Transport (MoT) started ordering 16T steel wagons for use in France and for replacements at home. They had a 9' wheelbase and those built by Charles Roberts & Co. had sloping sides.

60,000 MoT wagons were taken into BR stock and the MoT numbers were given a 'B' prefix. In the late 1940s, both the LNER and LMS had received batches of wagons and those of the latter, on passing into BR ownership, were given an 'M' number prefix.

There were around a quarter of a million steel mineral wagons on the British nationalised rail network. These replaced the scrapped 7-plank wagons, dominating coal, stone and iron ore transportation in the 1950s and 1960s. The standard design was a 16 ton all-steel mineral wagon with an end door. They were built for British Railways in their tens of thousands throughout the '50s. The building of the 16T all-steel mineral wagons finished in 1959. .

Bachmann introduced a new range of N gauge steel mineral wagons in 2006, using four different designs. Two standard 16 ton mineral wagons are shown here, along with a 27 ton iron ore 'Tippler'. The models are: