This vehicle was one of two such carriages which represented the smallest series of passenger rolling stock on the railway and was delivered as part of a batch of six in 1894 from Brown Marshalls & Co., Ltd. of Birmingham, favoured supplier at the time.

The second arrived two years later in 1896 as part of a further batch of seven vehicles, this time from the Metropolitan Carriage & Wagon Co., Ltd., and to all intents and purposes these were identical though with detail differences, notably the panelling.

The second of the two (designated as F.20 in the operating fleet) was in the railway’s final batch of “Small Fs”, so called because when compared to later deliveries their rooflines are visibly lower, all future stock would be of the “Large F” series.

Such was demand for carriage of luggage, two dedicated  vans for this purpose were delivered in 1897, becoming known as “Empress Vans”, arriving in Queen Victoria’s jubilee year.  “Luggage in advance” was a popular service. 

As F.19 and F.20 were so useful owing to thier confirguration with large luggage space, ultimately eight further carriages of similar design were delivered to the railway, the last being F.49 in 1926 which was the last new passenger carriage delivered to the line.

F.49 remains in regular service today.  The eight other vehicles were built on steel underframes as opposed to the original two that were constructed on all wooden frames as was commonplace at the time. 

F.19 saw regular use, mostly on the Peel and Ramsey lines where freight and goods traffic were a popular service; it remained in traffic until the fateful closure in 1965 and again returned when the line re-opened in 1967.  

It was after closure that it had been selected (with other redundant stock) for transporting to St. John’s Station for winter storage in the winter of 1975 where it was stowed in the large carriage shed there.

On the evening of 10th December 1975 a disastrous fire ripped through the carriage shed destroying the majority of the contents. F.19 was too badly damaged to consider saving, as the railway at this point had a surfeit of rolling stock.

F.19 was ultimately destroyed by controlled fire in July of 1976.  The Association have looked into the possibility of a replica in the past, the ultimate reward being the addition of another historical aspect and valuable storage space, see here.