Some time ago I added a unit coal train to the operation of my layout. The SP trains would have been carrying Wyoming coal from Ogden, Utah to San Jose, California. From there it would have gone out on locals to at least two cement quarries to be used it in their kilns.
On this layout these trains run through without any interchange. It seemed unrealistic for them to run loaded in both directions so I wanted an easy way to remove these loads so they could be empty in the eastbound direction.
The loads that come with the Micro-Trains hopper are good looking and fit snugly into the car and cannot be removed without picking up the car. The loads weigh 10 grams, with the empty car weighing 18 grams so a lot of the weight is in the loads. On the bottom there are three rectangular bulges.
First I wanted to make sure the empty cars would be not be too light and would run OK on the layout so I ran a train of 9 empty cars with several mechanical reefers on the back around the layout a few times and this seemed to work well.
I removed the center bulge with a coping saw then smoothed out the area with a sanding stick. I originally thought those bulges might contain some metal weight but apparently it does not and the 10 grams is all plastic. With one of the bulges removed, the load weighed in a 8 grams.
Using a sanding stick I sanded all of the outside edges until the load fit loose enough so that it fell out when the hopper car was turned upside down.
Some 5/8 inch wide metal strip was cut into lengths. The corners were rounded and the edges were filed smooth.
The metal strip was attached to the center area of the bottom of the load with E6000 adhesive and clamped until set. The 2 grams lost with the removal of the center hump was made up with the addition of the metal strip and the load was back to its original weight of 10 grams.
Now with the help of a magnet, the loads easily be removed when the west bound coal train reaches the west end staging yard.
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