I’m writing a new comedy/western novel. The setting is 1918 Texas. And I’m not quite sure how much the gold train should be hauling in my story. I don’t want it to be inaccurate. As in too little or too much. You know what I mean? I was thinking at least $300,000 or a million dollars in gold. What do you think is that too much or too little?
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Bearing in mind the amounts of money and gold quoted in westerns was always over-inflated I would say the best way to approach that question is with genuine data.
This website gives the price of pure gold by the ounce over the past couple of centuries: Measuring Worth Gold Prices and the Ratio to the Price of Silver
Taking that data as your starting point $1 million dollars worth of gold would weigh something approaching 15 thousand pounds or over 6 and a half tons (6 and a half thousand kilos for our european friends). So that’s around 6 or 7 family cars.
I guess what I’m saying is if you robbed a train with that much gold on it you’d need another train to take it away on. Not a horse 
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100 000 $ was a real fortune in these days.
But then, we are here in SW country, and one basic rule for a good SW screenplay is that for gold transports the number of guards decreases the more valuable the transport is. Same for the shooting abilities of these guards.
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If its SW style then exagerate is name of the game ! Good luck Id love to read it …