This brake van entered service on the South Eastern Railway
in July 1898. When built it was a great advance over the
earlier 10 ton vans. The unfitted goods trains working over
the sharply
graded routes of the South Eastern required either two 10-ton
brake vans or one 20-ton whenever the load exceed half that
authorised for the route. The brake van is 17 ft 6ins long,
built to diagram 1558 and has six wheels. It became Southern
Railway Nº. 55371 until sold in 1946 to the Royal Aircraft
Establishment at Farnborough. When the RAE’s branch railway
was closed in 1965 the van was purchased for use on the K&ESR.
It was restored in the late 1970’s, overhauled in 1986
and again fully refurbished during 1996/97. It is presently
finished in SER livery and fitted with through vacuum piping
to allow it to work with mixed trains. Evidence uncovered during
the 1996/97 overhaul indicated that Nº. 103 was originally
single ended, the ‘Headcorn end’ balcony probably
having been added in the early years of the 20th century.
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