Marty - I share your excitement - I purchased the 2014 edition - and it arrived the day before Thanksgiving that year - although I received a PM tender Lionel remedied that in short order. I also have the scale version from 2010 - although that is actually a PM locomotive and the PE tender was offered for separate sale. Lionel did an excellent job making the "real PE."
I was just running my PE Berk and cars a couple of weeks ago. I added Arttista figures to the cab - its not an easy process because it requires cutting the die-cast tabs - but once done they look really cool. I'll snap some photos to share.