Conventional Classics - Not so much

When Lionel announced their Conventional Classics series last year I was excited as anyone. I was very pleased when the 2340 showed up, looked and ran well. Unfortunately when the 2332 Madison set arrived it proved to just be more Chinese crap. The first set we received had one car that wasn't completely painted on the roof which was really noticeable even in bad light and the roller pick up was stripped out of the engine so it promptly fell off. Had it not been for poor paint job on the car we'd have probably just fixed the engine. Set two arrived. Again the roof of a car wasn't completely painted but at least this one looked ok in bad light and I was going to live with it until one of the motors in the engine quit working after a few laps around the Junction. Thankfully I was dealing with Trainz so making the exchanges them wasn't a hassle. This time they just swapped out the car and engine so naturally I now have a set with two cars of the same name, but at least they're painted.

I've read online that these engines have an overheating problem?! The observation is a nice addition and the lighted drumhead would be cool if the lighting matched anything else in the set. It amazes me that Lionel can't equal the quality of the stuff they made in the 40's & 50's when it's basically the same stuff that was supposedly improved?!

I still have the Burlington set and Milwaukee Road geep on order and I'll go ahead and get them since this stuff is cheap enough and probably good enough to run on the layout. After this, I'll stick with Postwar.