HEA Hopper Conversions: Scrapped

Sorry, couldn't resist that heading given the subject of this post!

The stars of the blog post today, featuring items under development for our HEA Hopper Conversions expansion for Train Simulator 2014 are possibly some the most minimal 'conversions' ever. As domestic and industrial coal traffic declined British Rail started looking for further traffic that the HEA hoppers they had relatively recently invested in could be used for.

One such traffic was the carrying of scrap from collection points to processing plants. Given the nature of the traffic the bottom discharge capabilities of the wagons was not needed with locations loading and unloading wagons using electro-magnets or grabs. As a consequence conversion involved blanking off the hoppers at the bottom of the wagon to give a level base. Two methods of conversion were used, either the welding of a steel plate across the tops of the hoppers (as in the maroon version above) or a more basic conversion achieved by filling the bottom of the wagon with ballast (as with the flame red and grey wagon above).

In both cases the TOPS code was changed to HSA and an increased tare indicated for the ballast filled examples to take into account the weight of the ballast in the bottom of the wagon. In either case the wagons were not overly successful for the harsh treatment they received being loaded and unloaded with grabs and magnets with serious body damage taking place fairly rapidly due to the much lighter build compared to the specialist scrap box type wagons.