The KT wagons were introduced to transport pine tree billets from the East Gippsland area to Maryvale for paper manufacture. The billets were forested by contractors and trucked to stations where they were transhipped to rail wagons. Crane slings were placed around the loads on the road trucks and placed into each KT compartment. Main loading stations were Bairnsdale and Heyfield. Bairnsdale in the 1960's was a very busy station with the crane siding always full of KT wagons. The siding held about ten to fifteen trucks.
The KT wagons were converted from _IY_ 22 ton underframes and featured stanchion sides with three bays for loading. The number group ran 320 to 364. This number group was an extension of the _K__ truck numbers and the numbers fit in the middle of the _KR_ group.
The billet operations ceased about 1972 when the Australian Paper Mills (APM) at Maryvale when full length pine logs were transported directly by road to the mill at Maryvale.
To convert the KT wagons to scantling timber traffic, the two internal bulkheads were removed. In a trial, one KT was lengthened about 4 feet and recoded to _IT_ 252. It later became _KS_ 7.