MTH Superliner cars--anyone have them?

I have the set. They're nice cars, but basically upgraded re-pops of the originals circa 1998. On this run they painted the window surrounds black to mimic the rubber seals, but on the sightseer lounge, they didnt paint the surrounds on the roof windows. Admittedly, its a hard effect to get because in reality, those windows have a shiny metal lip over the window seal in place. The real problem is the lack of flush windows, especially in the roof. The interior of the cars appears correct in its compartmentalization, etc....  its one color, and its wrong (tan). Should be blue. Thats fixable with some paint. Still no LED lights, and these things suck power (11 bulbs a car). 

Skip the transition sleeper, MTH messed up and it doesn't have a lower level diaphragm on one end. Find the old release, or just make due without it. 

I don't have the new ones but have eight cars from the late 1990's release. Great cars. The interiors are pretty accurate, and some of the cars have LED marker lights on the end with on/off controls. I suggest you look on eBay for these cars, they come up from time to time - that's how I got most of mine, and for a WHOLE lot less than what the new cars would cost. And as boilermaker1 notes, the cars do require a lot of power to run. A maximum of 4 cars for an 80-watt transformer. For an accurate, 8-car plus baggage consist, I bought a Lionel 180-watt PowerHouse and it seems to work pretty well.

Think LED lighting upgrades.

I love my old Amtrak Three Stripe MTH Superliners. Anyone know how they match up to the new releases (matching paint...)

Thank you.

Paul

Within the last few years, MTH realized that all along they were using the wrong blue. Essentially they were using phase IV blue for everything. ESomeone caught it and they fixed it to the lighter blue that phase III used. I wouldn't count of them matching, but then again... how many of the real thing were likely to be the exact same color? More obvious is going to be the painted window surrounds on the new cars, vs. the non-painted ones on the older cars. If you have the older release, keep em. I have the old set of Phase IIIs and the new release Phase IVs. There's not enough difference that I would replace the old set.

I was just at Berwyn Toys and Hobbies today in Berwyn, IL, and I think he has the newer Amtrak passenger cars you are looking to acquire.  He has an internet site from which you can get his phone number and office hours.

Chuck

If they're still using incandescent lighting with the CG-0000008 18V grain-of-wheat bulbs per the parts list, I measured 9 Watts per car for the overhead lighting with 18V on the track.  Lighting up a car requires more Watts than to pull it.  Go figure.

I have the original set of Amtrak cars, never run, anyone interested?

Nine watts is about right, I've found that the incandescent lighting in passenger cars runs about 1/3 to 1/2 an amp for each car.  Now when I put nine passenger cars on the track, the meter ticks up to about 200ma for the whole string.