Once the linen traffic from Brookhall Mill started to decline during the 1950s, the cash-strapped GNR board repurposed some of the former cream-liveried linen vans into general use, giving them the more familiar grey livery.
Here are three former BHM linen vans, freshly repainted, at Clogherhead in 1957, along with an also newly-repainted open wagon. The urgency to get the vehicles into traffic was such that it would be a number of months before they would receive their white lettering.