The rest of the brake install went fairly well, so that’s finally done.
This leaves the loads (maybe 6) and final assembly / touchup / whatever.
Sean, maybe I will get to the trestles this year after all… 
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Today I hope to finish touchup and start on the loads. Here are the loads as they currently exist…
Still thinking about the colors. The Comstock ore was mainly a mix of white (quartz) and gray-green to black (silver ore). Hard to replicate that. When the cars were narrow-gauged for the trona harvesting operations down south, there loads were white to yellowish. Both could be fine to coarse in texture.
size might be an issue but plenty available
Linked here … gray green quartz chips
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Great ideas, Hollywood. I’m checking out options…
[edit] After poking around, I’m getting some rough (vs. polished) gray-white aquarium gravel and will color some of it randomly. Thanks!
The touch-up blackening & staining are done, yay.
And the load structures are done.
Unfortunately, I’m noticing a big problem with the bins. Apparently, when I CA’d the feet to the bin bodies, some warping happened to the bin sides, lifting the feet up. Potentially making me redo all their shims, not sure. It would kind of suck if the thicker spacer boards (which I tore out and replaced with thinner ones) would now fit…
So it’s not going to be a slam dunk, plopping the bins onto the chassis. But, maybe it’ll go better than I expect.
But, one thing at a time, and I’ll focus the loads next.
Thats why god invented the belt sander…
That and for doing your nails while in the shop.
The epoxy putty is now in place, with magnets embedded. They will indeed get belt-sanded around the edges once fully cured.
The aquarium gravel has arrived, and will need additional finer material and spattering of dark greenish paint…
I have no idea how the “ore” will turn out, and little knowledge on the topic anyway, but I’m probably ok with stating it looks just like Comstock ore — no matter what the result is. That is, since there’s only a handful of geologists who might know what Comstock ore actually looked like… 
[edit: Hollywood, I won’t lie, haha! I guess I’m just saying that I need to draw the line on how close the ore load looks to the original, since it varied a lot, and my options are limited. I’ll do my best; and also hope that no Mackay School of Mines grad attends the V&T conference. 
]
Here’s a page showing various silver ores of Nevada, with Comstock / VC ore in the middle.
https://nevada-outback-gems.com/prospect/gold_specimen/Silver_ores.htm
I’ve read, in many places, that the Comtsock ore often had a dark greenish color to it.
Hence my talk of dark gray-green.
The colored gravel offered on Amazon and elsewhere is generally polished, but this application of course needs rough-cut.
Size of material needs to be what a man could dump with a shovel, and occasionally lift into the ore car with his hands.
Native rock surrounding the ore was generally (white) quartz. But darker material might find its way into the mix.
“Country” rock (outside the vein), of whatever color, might have also been gathered, but most likely only accidentally.
I was hoping for Woodland Scenics “buff” gravel, but it’s nowhere near representative.
Rooster, I think I need a form to self-certify myself as insane…
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I will sign the certificate.
Not from me man… I’ve had enough and I’m outta here!!
Good luck my friend,
You got issues and nobody cares about modeling that crap …just like Amtrak!!
I vote for the Platinum Mist base coat with the red,white and blue striping style ore from that page!
I think it would be appropriate for the era.
You’d be right, they were immensely patriotic!
I’ll keep your suggestion in mind. 
Good, Now quit dicking around and just paint them and call it done!
Then get outside and run them on your RR !!
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Gradual painting experimentation underway. This after many light sprays, the most important being gloss white for the quartz. Still hard to see though, needs more.
Variables including hue, shade, reflectivity, and coarseness. And patience.
I’m awaiting the arrival of 2 lbs of ~2mm unpolished white gravel, because the above is too coarse to use by itself. I’ll paint the small stuff, and maybe some finer Woodland Scenics stuff.
I should be done in a couple months.
Or by the weekend, Sean. Not sure yet. Hang in there buddy.
Our daugther & fam’s been visiting for a couple weeks, and I took a break over the weekend for some outings. Saturday we took everyone on the “Urban Pirate” boat ride on the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. Our two yougest gk’s are in the center.
Then around the harbor to the MD Science Center, here’s me with GD2.
Yesterday we took the kids to Leakin Park to ride trains at CALS.
We made it halfway around the loop, but then it began to downpour, and looked like it would continue. A fun lap, all enjoyed it, but got dripping wet. So we went home for games, dinner and movies.
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Here’s how the load build has been coming, starting with two sizes of gravel, all of which was painted with white, some green and some black. I also sprinkled on some buff and gray ballast.
The first article:
It seemed to come out fine, after a bunch of belt sanding to make it fit. Here’s the other 6 in process.
The gravel is held with mod podge (with 33% water), which dries matte. After draining came touchup gravel. After all is dry tomorrow, and tape is pulled and sanding done, I’ll probably find more bare spots to fill. Then I’ll need to check-fit with the bins (but I hope they’ll be interchangeable, we’ll see).
The magnet idea is likely to fail, because the rocks are going on thicker and heavier than I expected. I had originally planned on a thin layer of ballast, but after going down the ore rabbit hole I ended up here.
So to get the loads out, I’m belt-sanding them to have a decent gap with the bin, so I can just tip them out.
Cliff would the walnut pieces like Dan used work as a lighter load?