Lionel #11712 Great Lakes Express Passenger Cars

First the Battlefield V trailer and now this arriving in the mail? Man, today really is my day!

The wait is finally over! Now if only I had a tender that said Lionel Lines Oh well. You win some you lose some! At least I know what to look for next. You have NO IDEA how long I've been waiting for passenger cars like these! Probably since I first got the Polar Express back in 2006. Now before you go into your argument saying "But you started OFF with Passenger Cars!" I mean Passenger Cars that could look right behind engines like the 4-4-2 Jr Atlantic, or a Postwar Turbine, or an MPC Hudson. The Polar Express Baby Madison Cars only look good behind the Polar Express Jr Berkshire and the Polar Express Jr Berkshire ONLY. I dunno what it is, maybe the color scheme, maybe the silhouettes, or maybe that its just one of those things you can't seperate.

ANYWAYS! These passenger cars were made in 1990 and were part of the #11712 Great Lakes Express Passenger Set, led by Gray Painted 2-6-4 Prairie. Its a nice looking set, one I would've actually purchased in full, but the tender that goes with the engine does NOT have a whistle. Thats a no-no in my book! I still plan to get the engine (and set box) however, but maybe later because what I want to do is actually buy the tender shell and put it on a tender frame that has a whistle, and then buy the engine only and the loco box after that. Until then, they're gonna run mostly behind my #681 Turbine and other steamers. It'll look really neat under the Christmas tree!

The cars are inspired from the Postwar 2400 Green Passenger cars, No. 2400 Maplewood, No. 2401 Chatham and No. 2402 Hillside respectively, after locations near thier manufacturing plants if I remember correctly. The Great Lakes cars, were named after locations near the modern-era Michigan plant. A nice touch! They're gonna see a lot of run time on my floor layout, so all aboard and climb aboard!

#16027 Mt. Clemens Combo

#16028 Detroit Coach

#16029 Lansing Coach

#16030 Chesterfield Observation

The SKU numbers (Also the numbers on the side of the cars) if you're curious.