Lionel CP Baby Madison Observation Car 6-81744 - I received a coach car!

Thank you very much for the info. I'll keep it in mind for future reference, and it would be the least expensive way to go.

But, I'm going to return the observation car for a couple of reasons.

One, it's just not right that I should buy a brand new item and have to go to the trouble of repairing it because of a manufacturing error on Lionel's part.

Two, I limit myself to a pretty small train budget, so for me, the purchase of 7 Baby Madison cars (a 3 pack and 2 2 packs) is an extravagant purchase that I had saved up the funds for a while. I know it isn't much money compared to what folks are paying for scale cars or Legacy locomotives, but I've wanted to get this set of cars for a few years and it's disappointing to finally get it and there to be a problem with one of the cars. The observation car is my favorite heavyweight car because of the platform on the end, so to get an observation car without the platform is particularly disappointing.

Third, I haven't been able to find much in the way of photos of the newer Lionel Baby Madison cars. All the dealers show the Lionel catalog picture, which doesn't show the platform end of the car. Looking at ebay, I see a dealer selling break ups of some of the cars from different railroads. Some of the observation cars for the Santa Fe and New York Central have non-illuminated drum heads on the end rail, while the Pullman does not have a drum head. I haven't seen any pictures, so I don't know if the Canadian Pacific observation car comes with a drum head or not. But, if I buy a generic observation gate and repair the car myself, I'll never know and it is going to bug me. As I said, this is an extravagant purchase for me, so if I do receive an observation car with a CP drum head, it makes the set just that much more special to me.

I sent the car back to the store, and I received a replacement that is an observation car. It does have a drum head, so I am glad I went to the expense of returning the car. Not sure if the drum head is a model of a real example, but I run traditional size trains so I'm not worried, and it looks neat.

So, the good news is I have my full set of heavyweight passenger cars, including the observation car.

The disappointment is I had to pay extra to ship the car back to the store, and the store had to pay to ship the car to me. Lionel didn't conduct satisfactory quality control on the car I initially received, since if someone had looked at the car from a few feet away, they would have noticed it was constructed as a coach car, not an observation car. I'm going to write Lionel customer service, but I doubt I'll receive a reply.

If it was a manufacturing or shipping error I wonder why you had to cover the expense of return shipping?

Mike

It was a manufacturing error. The dealer I purchased it from is well known and I have purchased items from them in the past. They wouldn't have seen the problem as the observation car was part of a 3 car set. Each of the cars is individually packed in a standard Lionel box with the clear window, but these boxes are inside a larger Lionel box that doesn't have any windows. It states on the dealer website that the customer has to pay return shipping. I looked at a number of websites for other dealers, and most stores have similar policies. If I was a customer who spends a large amount of money at the store,  I probably could have pushed the issue and they might have paid the shipping to keep me happy, but as I mentioned,  I don't spend very much on trains. The problem is because Lionel, or probably more likely, the manufacturer contracted by Lionel, did not conduct satisfactory quality control on the car, since if someone had looked at the car from a few feet away, they would have noticed it was constructed as a coach car, not an observation car.

The drumhead with the beaver is worth it!

Speaking of quality control with respect to these newer Lionel baby Madison cars, you might want to pop the roofs off a few of them and check out the wiring. Lionel used to use tape, or glue guns to tack wires in place. Bad enough. Lately however, they just melt the wires into the inside of the shell by slamming the tip of a soldering iron into the whole mess periodically along the wire runs. Naturally, these wires, which are melted together, often cause shorts and a complete meltdown of all the wiring and damage to the car and/or trucks. We have seen a lot of these unfortunate situations for repair at the train store where I do repairs. These things would be setting fire to people's homes, but luckily (or not) the cheap thin wires act like fuses and kind of burn themselves out quickly. Yes, quality control is a major issue. Buyer beware.

GregR, thanks for the info. I'll make a note to inspect them before I run them.