Bachmann & Farish HRA aggregate hoppers
◆GAUGE ‘OO’/’N’
◆MODELS • Bachmann 37-865B HRA bogie hopper, DB Cargo red, £69.95 each • Graham Farish 373-865A HRA bogie hopper, DB Cargo red, £46.95
◆AVAILABILITY Bachmann stockists Web www.bachmann.co.uk
Hundredsof high-capacity wagons were left redundant following the sharp downturn in coal traffic during the late 2010s, with DB Cargo cascading many of its HTAs into aggregate traffic.
However, these 100-ton capacity bogie hoppers, built by EWS in the early 2000s, could only be partly filled, owing to stone being much denser than coal. As a result, loaded trains contained a significant amount of empty space within the wagons. To improve efficiency, DB experimented with a shortened HTA, cutting out the central hopper bay and welding the two ends back together.