Walthers Phase IV Superliners

I got several Walthers Phase IV Amtrak Superliners from their original run more than 20 years ago. As best I can tell, I never got a complete set of them for a long-distance train, but I find I do have three coaches, a lounge, and a sleeper. In their original release, they were more like a starting point than a finished model, and I worked on them in spurts now and then over subsequent years. The biggest obstacle was having to drill for and add grab irons and handrails. I never completed this task, but I did finish it on three of them, including a coach and the lounge below:

Among the uncompleted tasks that came with those original cars was the need to add numbers from decal sets supplied. I finally finished this with all the cars, and in addition, I painted the trucks and added Kadee couplers. Some of the Superliner II cars had silver trucks, which I copied on my models.

More recent Walthers Superliner runs have more complete paint jobs on the cars in Phase IV and IVb, and later still metal plating and interiors. The original-run cars didn't have interiors. I'm inclined to question whether metal plating adds a whole lot to Superliner models, as the finish on the prototype isn't really shiny, as you can see below:

Amtrak 32078 was a Superliner II still in Phase IV paint on the Southwest Chief in 2008. As far as I can tell, the Superliner IIs were delivered in Phase IV paint and ran with Superliner Is in Phase II and III for some time after delivery. Here are the two schemes on the Coast Starlight in 1995:

If you compare these photos with the early Walthers models, the silver/platinum mist paint on the models doesn't look all that bad.