Functional and non-prototypical appearance defects aside, I find it interesting that anyone interested in scale fidelity would be concerned about light bleed-through on a scale caboose.
I never said I was interested in scale fidelity. I bought it because I wanted a nice caboose to go with my nice VL BB, and Lionel conveniently offered it at the same time. Being it'll cost me to send it back, I'll just write Lionel and let them know how disappointed I am in their product, but will just leave it as it is until I have time to address it because I know I can fix it for less then it'll cost me to ship it back to them.
So I'm done ranting about it. Here's hoping that the PRR caboose I ordered a year ago is better when it comes in.