For the opening of the railway on 1st July 1873 twenty four of these four-wheel carriages were delivered from the Metropolitan Carriage & Wagon Co., of Saltley in Birmingham.  They were made up of three separate compartments, each designed to carry ten people (whereas today it is more common to accommodate eight in each compartment).  The “A” series consisted of eleven compartment carriages and one first class saloon (A.12).  Rakes commonly ran in sets, from 1881 a policy of close-coupling them into pairs was embarked upon which later formed the basis of the “pairs” series being two four-wheelers mounted on  a bogie underframe.  There follows below a breakdown of how the “A” series were mounted on bogie underframes between 1909 and 1926 and their subsequent fates.  Details for each individual vehicle are always being added to and these can be found by clicking the links on the left of the panel below:-