Does any company offer coke loads for open hoppers? I have looked and all i can find are coal loads. I need some and if i have to i may need to make my own but i would rather purchase commercial ones if i can.
I’m not aware of any commercially available coke loads, but it shouldn’t be too much work to spray coal loads with a suitably coloured dark grey paint to make them appear more like coke.
I use coke “breeze” to simulate coke loads, although I prefer to run loose loads. I don’t know of any hobby source for this material: mine “followed me home from work”. If you know anyone working in the steel industry, you might find a way to obtain some, although as a loose load, it is rather dirty.
Wayne
Accurail and Athearn offer moulded coal loads that could be painted or covered in scatter to represent coke. The Accurail ones for their 34ft hoppers are plastic and include ball bearings that push into the back of the moulding so you can lift them out with a magnet, which they also sell. I believe the athearn ones are some sort of cast resin from the ones that come with their RTR hoppers.
Coke (in my experience) is a much smaller size than coal (except pulverised coal)… so I would think you could either scatter a thin black powder over an existing open hopper load - suitably prepped with glue- or use someting like wet and dry sandpaper. in other words I think that the grain size is so small that when scaled down it would barely show.
[:P]