Cattle wagons were the first of the specialised wagons to be produced and reference to their manufacture and use has been established as far back as 1848. Cattle wagons were made in large numbers by all four of the pre-nationalisation rail companies and were a very common sight on rail systems until their use was eclipsed by road freight vehicles.

Once road freight was established as the prime method of transporting livestock many of these cattle wagons were either destroyed as unusable for anything else, or the more lightly soiled examples were converted quite commonly into ale vans for the transport of beer.