OK, so I finally found a really nice set of four MTH-made California Zephyr cars. I got them at a show last week from a guy who said they were O27. That makes sense since they seem a bit shorter than other CZ cars I've seen. I cleaned them all up, and put them in my storage unit this past week. It's not convenient to get over there to grab them and shoot some pics, otherwise I would.
Although they did not have boxes and were loose in a cardboard beer flat, they cleaned up beautifully. The quality of these cars is excellent and I went to eBay to see if I could add some more cars to the set. The funny thing about my set is that the cars were identified by numbers, not names. As you know, these cars are well-known for using a variety of names that all start with "Silver". My cars, however, have numbers. I looked on-line for a while today and couldn't find any references to this.
My question is this...what do I have? Were they originally sold as a set? What era would these have been used in the real world? D&RGW or Amtrak? Are these accurate replicas or did some of these cars use numbers instead of names? Which engine would have most likely been used to pull these wonderful cars?
I realize without photos and measurements, it may be hard to pinpoint, but I have faith in my fellow Forum members and know there are people here that can confidently answer me and know what I'm talking about.
My plan is to run them as an Amtrak consist. Would this have happened in the real world or were these cars used on the D&RGW before the transition? I'm not such a purist that everything on my layout has to be totally "correct" to what was seen in the real world, but I don't want to make blatant errors either.
Any light anyone can shed on this is sincerely appreciated. If I need to get photos, I can do that after Thanksgiving. Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone here on the Forum.
Tom
