Spent the evening creating some load inserts for my 21T mineral wagons. These were easy to make, using 1mm grey mount board, stacked and glued, and work out at a cost of 22p per insert. They’ve been made to be removable and give the wagon a total weight of 46g, once the coal is added this will bring it to around 55-60 grams which should give them a nice realistic weight per wagon. I know there are offerings out there that offer a similar price per insert, but still require the cutting be done by hand. I think with a little tweaking I can squeeze a few more layers out of each sheet, which would drive the price per insert down even further, and there’s not a great deal of waste as I keep them excess mount board to use for other projects. Tomorrow I will be adding real coal to these to give them their loads, then sealing each to prevent my hand getting covered in loose coal dust every time I remove the load.

Posted by Port Hill Model Railway at 2022-01-19 02:29:15 UTC