These green cars were Lionel’s first plastic passenger cars. The Madison cars were made of Bakalite which is a compressed granular material, not a plastic.
The Lionel 2400 Maplewood, 2401 Hillside, and 2402 Chatham were introduced in 1948. The passenger cars were cataloged in O gauge sets with the 671 turbine, and in 027 sets with the 2025 steamer.
There is a interesting variation of these cars. The common cars come in boxes with carboard sleeve inserts and NO people in the windows. There are green cars with people in the windows. The cars withpeople in the windows come in later style boxes without the sleeves. The later boxes have coupler protection flaps.
In the case of the green cars with people in the windows, the car can easily be made by changing the windows – no tools are needed, but the boxes canneot be faked.
It’s very hard to find clean undamaged boxes for the later 2400 series Pullman cars because the trucks tend to twist and tear the boxes when the cars are inserted or removed. Boxes with all their flaps and no tears bring a premium.
In 1950, the cars were dropped from the catalog in favor the 2481 series yellow cars.