The Southern Crescent

Here's another of the very attractive Lionel/MPC short madison sets.  This one dates from 1977 and is the Southern Crescent Limited set, which features a small Hudson in the very attractive green and gold livery of the Southern RR and six matching passenger cars.  This was the first short madison set that was offered not as a set in a set box, but for separate sale, where you bought the cars and the locomotive separately.  The locomotive is equipped with the Might Sound of Steam, a first attempt at electronic sound, and the cars were the first short madisons offered with operating truck-mounted couplers (as opposed to the body-mounted dummy couplers that characterized the first three short madison sets from the early 70's).  Other than the sound, the locomotive is purely conventional like its postwar brethren, as you can see from the mechanical E-unit lever sticking up out of the boiler.  The cars, as you can see in this True HD 1080p video, are quite attractively decorated and together with the locomotive make for an eye-catching train.