Marker,
Imho, for your units the Alclad 107 Chrome or the Alclad 105 polished aluminum would be a good route to take.
I tend to lean more now towards the #105. Used over gray, the tonal color is the same as that of the Chrome but its sheen, to me, more closely resembles that of a car that's been very well taken care over the course of a decade or so, vs a unit that is brand new out of the Budd plant. If you use the Chrome 107, the sheen is more brilliant, but it can still be easily toned down with clear coat.
Alclad's new basecoat color formula's haven't hit the market yet, but in the meantime there are two choices of grays I suggest that you can use on your car's metal surfaces.
Scale Coat 1 New York Central Light Gray (for a "warm" aged tone)
Scale Coat 1 New York Central Dark Gray (for a "cool" excellent condition tone)
On my units in the photos above, the sleeper has a warm tone, while the baggage-dorm and diner have cool tones. Since they're plastic I used Scale Coat II, which is geared for plastic, but the same NYC colors.
RE: Your SCL experiences....Excellent! So glad that you experienced the SCL and saw some good action in the pre-Amtrak days. Riding the Silver Star and Silver Meteor then must have been enjoyable. I wish SCL had saved that Doodlebug! Thank you for sharing your prototype experience and confirming that SCL equipment did look decent before Amtrak's arrival. I do have one model of an RF&P E8 which will run in my model SCL trains.
Have you posted your photos on line?
I've been to Savannah before and wasn't even aware of the history regarding that base. The B-47 was a graceful looking beauty.
