I’ve recently been asked if I use removable loads for all my coal hoppers, and my answer was yes and no. I’ll explain that answer. I do use removable loads from Accurail and Motrak. However, i also use real coal in some of my hoppers.

The loads made by Accurail are lightweight plastic that are easily removed with a magnet. The Motrak loads however are a resin material that fits pretty tightly into the cars and is also fragile. The real coal loads are of course loose. With this being said, I simply leave all the loads in the cars, whether they’re going to or coming from the mine. It would be quite time consuming to try to remove the real coal each and every time, as well as taking a chance of breaking one of the resin loads from Motrak.