After seeing these were in stock at Charles Ro, excellent price by the way, I ordered them earlier this week.
Then I began to read the threads on this forum regarding the arrival of this round of production of the 21" passenger cars, and my heart sank and I began to be meaningfully concerned that I had made a huge mistake. That fear only grew as the days passed and more thread / comments came in.
Today became the day truth, would I be forever saddened by what might have been, or perhaps pleased that the comments / threads denoting the countless failures point were perhaps over blown.
The answer is.....
Well, not just yet, to give some context. I have roughly 100 21" passenger cars, these are mostly K-line, with the Atlas CZ, and a couple dozen GGD. You'll notice I didn't mention Lionel, I own, zero Lionel passenger cars. I have been a fan of the Lionel 89' box cars, auto racks, and their PS-4 flat cars, but otherwise, not a loyalist or fan boy.
With that said, these cars are as good out of the box as any I've seen. The underside detailing is well done and more detailed than K-Line, although not on par with Atlas or GGD. The paint is well done with clean lines and no meaningful issues. There are a few very, very, minor marks -- those were kindly noted on one car with arrows from Lionel or perhaps Ro, which I found odd, but even those are extremely minor.
I love the green and white cars, they are vastly different than any other cars I own, and I'm really happy to add them to the fleet. The interiors are blue, which is also different and stands out in a good way. The finish of the stainless cars in inferior to that of the K-Line cars, but those are in a league above all others, the stainless finish is as good if not slightly better than MTH, or Atlas.
Here are photos of every car. I will not be able to run them as the layout is currently being rebuilt, the long run of 35' is homasote, so soon, but until then I will leave it to others to comment on their operations.
