After a mad flurry of restoring some old Airfix 16T minerals I turned to doing a few loads for 3H Coke Hoppers. Two of these I built a long time ago, the third came second hand from the web.

Although these were being done for the coke hopper, the same method can be used for any open wagon and any mineral load.

As I was doing three I decided to cut a template first. This was done from 80 thou styrene and sized to sit on the lip below the raves.

Next was to make the base. As the load needs to cover the gaps between the raves thse need to be quite thick, so having a scout round in the odds box I found some offcuts of foam board and some 6mm balsa. I used balsa for the latest ones as it is cleaner to carve than expanded polystyrene but some of the previous batch used two layers of foam board. A couple of legs are needed at the ends to keep the load level so these were made from balsa strips 10mm wide which I found is easy to glue on and gives more rigidity if the load is to be taken in and out.

These were assembled and the top of the balsa carved to the profile required with a craft knife, then test fitted to make sure it was the correct height and shape, and as I wanted them to also run as empties that it would come out easily.

All that remains is to colour the top and sides with the colour of the load, coal, ballast, stone, ore, etc spread the top with PVA and sprinkle the chosen mineral. For coke I use crushed smokeless fuel.

It's then ready for checking the fit. This one is waiting for the load to be finished off.

Other examples under construction using the same method are power station coal in a 21T Mineral using coal dust as the topping and a 7-plank of crushed anthracite