I have that Empire State Express set. I bought it sight unseen and didn't know it was a mint still sealed box!
I gladly opened it and found it to be a real gem of a set. My few gripes are that it doesn't have a whistle in the tender and they didn't use 6 wheel trucks on the tender either.
Some very lucky kids got those sets back then and I hope they got to learn the love of toy trains from them.