Two questions for the price of one...

[TrainNut]

I picked these passenger cars up at a swap meet today. Trouble is, the more I get into this stuff, the more "correct" I try to be. Infuriatin'! I'll be a rivet counter before long!!
Can anyone please tell me what is the correct type of locomotive or locomotives that would have pulled each set of passenger cars? I did some research but could only find pictures of the individual coaches and not the entire train. Thanks.

 

[RailRon]

The yellow-silver Rio Grande cars could have been used on the D&RGW Zephyr and/or the famous D&RGW Ski Trains (Denver - Winter Park CO).
As motive power one of the yellow-silver D&RGW F7 (or F9) locos would be ok, I think. They ran on that train in the four-black-line and in the one-black-line color scheme.

Ron

Pic 1: D&RGW Ski train, pic 2: Zephyr near Moffat East portal - one-line scheme, pic 3: 4-line-scheme (same loco as on pic 2!)

 

[jim currie]

Ron nailed the smoth side cars the heavy weights would be any motive power from steam to early diesel.

 

[shaygetz]

...unles you're modeling early Amtrak, then anything goes as the older equipment was phased out or repainted. For about 3 years it wasn't at all unusual to see the cars from 3-4 different roads and configurations including old heavyweights and corrogated/smoothside streamliners.

 

[Russ Bellinis]

I'm not sure how much DRGW equipment Amtrak had. The DRGW didn't run any long distance trains to my knowledge. Their passenger service was ski trips into the high country in winter and hauling fishermen to the same locations in the summer. DRGW kept up their passenger service for quite a few years after the formation of Amtrak.

Jim Currie is right about the heavey weights. On the Santa Fe, the heavey weights were demoted to lesser trains after the lightweight streamliners came out. Prior to 1938, the heavey weights would have been behind 4-8-4s or 4-8-2s in the mountain districts and 4-6-4s or 4-6-2s in the plains. After the war, the Santa Fe ran a mix of heavey weights and streamliners on such trains as the Grand Canyon, and I think the Texas Chief. The Chief, Super Chief, and El Capitan were all streamlined.