My new BLI cab forward won’t smoke regardless of what position the switch is in. I have not tried to run it, but using dcc in the idle position I though the engine should produce a little smoke. I may have overfilled it, instructions say add 3 to 4 drops only, which I did. I contacted BLI with my problem and they claimed that the smoke unit has fluid in it from the factory, which I doubt. They suggested running it for 3 hours to see if smoke would be produced. Any suggestions. I wanted to convert from O scale to HO but this has me started off on the wrong foot especially since cost me $450.00.
Some months ago in Model Railroader, the ‘smoking’ cab-forward was reviewed, and as I remember, the loco only started producing smoke in the upper quadrant of its speed range. Prototypically, the cab-forward was a very ‘clean’ running engine, most of the photos showing great gouts of smoke coming from the stack are exactly that–showing off for the photographer. As a kid, I can remember them running over Donner Pass with heavy freights and not showing much smoke at all. You may need to run it at full throttle to get the element heated properly, then back it off and see how it smokes, then. Frankly, HO locomotives that ‘smoke’ tend to look more like someone stuck a lit cigarette down the stack, anyway, it’s pretty wispy.
Tom [B)]
The use of smoke in HO scale has been discussed ad nauseam, and the opinion always seem to be, DON’T. Smoke fluid is oily and leaves a dirty film on your scenery and track.
O scale doesn’t have as much problem with this because they are heavier and not as touchy about dirty track as HO scale.
HO scale smoke generators produce only a wispy white smoke that is nowhere near realistic in volume or color, and some people have even been alergic to it.
Thanx to both of you for your responses. You may be aware of this, but sometime this fall MTH will deliver a Pennsy K4 with syncronized puffing smoke, I saw it function at York this spring and was impressed. It’s important because of my satisfaction with the O gauge engines that I own. I just feel that it adds to the realism. I’m thinking of downsizing so that I can have “more” of a layout now occupied by my O gauge operation.
Tom great shot of that Yellowstone.
One response that I didn’t expect was to my e-mail address from olpmaster@trains.com telling me that I have responses to my post; very cool. [8D]
