Like its sister, 1203 was built for the Western Mining Corporation. It was delivered in November 1965. Although owned initially by WMC, it was painted in the WAGR livery and numbered A1513 in the WAGR number series. It was used on WMC's Koolanooka - Geraldton export iron ore traffic. It eventually passed into WAGR ownership, and became part of ARG's fleet when AWR took over Westrail.

1203 is seen here (with 851 and 906) heading an empty grain train at Grantham on 9 April 2006.

Photo: Peter Knife