Prototypical Engine for Southern 21" Passengers Cars?

booker110 posted:

Last summer I bought a set of the southern 21" passenger cars and am trying to decide what engine would be the most appropriate/prototypical to pull this set. I really liked the Lionel Southern Alco PA 6900 and 6901, but I am not sure what Southern Railway engines would have pulled passenger cars like these...steam and/or diesel...any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated..thanks in advance

A few questions to help responders:

1) What brand are your 21" passenger cars?

2) Are the cars heavyweights or streamlined?

3) What era are you desiring to model, i.e. steam, transition between steam & diesel, or early diesel?

These ran for many many years.....up into the 1970's.......

Weaver E-8.....SRR did not have B units but they sold them this way. 

thanks very much for taking the time to respond

Hot Water..they are the lionel 21" streamlined cars...I really prefer to model the diesels 

I am pretty sure that Southern started painting the black roof on passenger cars in the mid 1960s.By then the remaining PA diesels had been assigned to south Georgia and think they were even retired before 1965. The recent MTH Premier Southern E8s are the correct diesels for the black roof cars.

http://southern.railfan.net/im...rchive/archives.html