In past threads here about malfunctioning locomotives, every now-and-then a faulty smoke unit turns out to be the culprit. I have never shared in the excitement or thrill of having “Realistic huffing-and-puffing” smoke coming out of my steam locomotives (and now diesels, thanks to BLI) so one of my first tasks when un-boxing a new locomotive is to run it until the factory fill of smoke fluid is cooked out, gasp [+o(] then locating the OFF switch, hopefully to never be bothered with them again.
On New Year’s Day I had a few friends over for an operating session and during the evening one of them called out to me and asked about the smoke unit on my PRR Q2. I said I never use it and it is switched off. Well, says he, explain all that smoke coming out of the engine!
I wasn’t even running it.
Sure enough, smoke was coming from somewhere in there! I couldn’t quite pinpoint the source. I called up the address and the engine ran for a few feet then stopped, THEN shorted the section of track it was on.
The next day I opened the tender expecting to find a toasted decoder board. Not so, the board looked fine, certainly nothing burned on there that would produce the amount of smoke we saw or the nasty smell pervading the interior.
I then began to open the boiler to see if the motor had fried. When I put test leads on the motor it ran smooth as silk! Continuing disassembly, and still sniffing around for the source of the burnt varnish smell I popped off the smokebox door and fished out the elaborate smoke unit.
There it was!
The switch was still in the off position! I’m glad nothing else got damaged. These Broadway Q2s are scarce and sometimes get pretty costly to replace.
So, the above scenario got me to thinking about these smoke units an
Are my only choices “gimmick” or “must have?” I think most smoke units in steam locomotives look pretty inadequate, except perhaps when a locomotive is at rest. But oddly enough I think they look more plausible in diesels (when installed) and in industrial smoke stacks in structures.
At least thus far, nobody seems to have created a smoke unit of any kind that makes me think “ah … the aroma of coal burning.”
Having been out of the hobby for years, I was surprised when i went to the Timonium show and the smoking engines smelled exactly like my American Flyer did in 1958. I wasn’t crazy about the smell then nor now.
Making it smell like coal would remind me of my grandparents house that was heated by coal in a pot bellied stove. A quaint memory but not something I would want either.
Personally I think manufacturers are doing a lot of dumb things. Smoke is just one of them. IF…IF…the smoke were realistic maybe I could go for it. Until then it’s just another gimmick I could pass on…IF I HAD THE OPTION.
It’s right there with the “radio chatter” in the steamers. What? Or right there with the operating water tank with sounds. Seriously? What’s next? Squeeking boxcar doors opening & closing? Flat wheels? Hobos singing in the freight cars?
I love sound and think it adds a lot to running my choochoo’s but I have a friend who has serious hearing issues and it physically hurts him to hear the sound systems. OK…yes… they can be turned off but why should buyers have to pay for some of this crap when it isn’t needed or wanted? Couldn’t they be like buying a car with or without options? He’s not alone about sound as many folks do not use sound as they find it annoying.
Every once in a while, I’m at a train show where the venue has actually allowed smoke units and someone is running one. I find the smell overpowering and I spend my time elsewhere. Some years ago, vendors at the Springfield/Amherst show who found themselves near the MTH booth expressed dismay at being so close to so many smoke units running all day.
Sorry, but it’s a very chemical odor I can do without.
I’m not a big fan of smoke but I do like sound. I also have allot of just DC engines,
As far as paying for something you don’t want just buy engines that are dcc ready Or straight DC engines.
The one problem in Ho is the prices that are charged for these electronic wonders. This why I buy only dcc ready or plain DC from the 90’s like Rivarossi, IHC, and AHM.
It’s like sound or weathering or dcc. Enough people like it that it’s included on some locomotives, cars, or structures.
Personally, I just turn off the smoke. Sound I like sometimes and sometimes I turn it off. I don’t buy anything that comes weathered. Lately, I prefer dcc or dcc ready with a socket.
Sure you pay extra for the those things you don’t want, but the manufacturers probably can’t afford to have multiple versions covering all the permutations of smoke/no smoke, sound/no sound, dcc/ no dcc, weathered/ not weathered, etc. So they make a marketing decision on how many versions to have and what to include on them.
I didn’t read ever word of the above comments. I think a quick skim revealed a lack of enthusiasm for smoke. And I’ll add another vote.
Only one exception.
I had (and still have) a Lionel 2-8-4. And it does look real sweet puffing smoke. But let’s face it kids, it’s a toy. Same as those really cool rotating swich lights on the 022 switches.
The only smoke on my HO railroad will be from electrical failure.
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Actually I have a few Sound Car units in mechanical refrigerator cars and one in the cab-car of a C&NW Bi-level push-pull train. So it does serve a purpose for certain situations…
I have had the same experience here. LGB/Garden railway stuff running in an endless loop at several of the train shows. The oily film was collecting on the vinyl protective covering on the gymnasium floor and people were slipping. It was posing a real hazard but the vendor seemed nonplussed when a few people mentioned it. If the aural bombardment didn’t drive you away the olfactory repulse did!
Thanks for all the replies and discussion, fellows.
Sigh. I tried smoking engines in an attempt to keep the boys interested…didn’t work so well. The MTH and BLI engines’ smoke did not leave a film in the room or on the track for me. Actually the dirty film on the track contained a high percentage of shiny metal chips. This is because BLI’s wheel plating in particular wears off to brass quickly! Even the high priced hybrids like the GN 4-8-4 have excessive wheel plating wear that is unlike anything I am experiencing with other brass steamers.
I have since learned to appreciate other steamers that do not smoke or make noise, and might even be unpainted brass. I do not appreciate the unsightly, hard to keep connected properly wire harness so typical of today’s plastic and hybrid steam that has all the features I do not any longer need. Instead I prefer the good old solid drawbar with maybe a single wire plug for tender light…
It’s a gimmick. Smoke is just another in a long line of gimcrackery from the manufacturers that use it.
Smoke units are banned at my club. It leaves an oily residue on everything, especially track. We have enough problems with dirty track; we don’t need to make it worse.
It can leak all over the place, especially when you flip it over to change the couplers or replace a driver.
It stinks. The smell can be overwhelming.
It is an irritant. The fumes make my eyes burn and sticks in the back of my throat.
It negatively affects loco performance by removing weight.
It uses more amps, which means we would need more circuit breakers to handle a bunch of them (sound is bad enough for power).
It is completely unrealistic. Smoke is usually gray or black. You normally only see white from a steam engine on a cold day. And white smoke from a diesel? Only when something is wrong. An whatever the color, it should not look like burning cigarette in an ash tray.
The first thing I do is turn off the smoke when I get one of these, but even then I’ve noticed that certain locos get hot where the smoke unit is even tho’ it’s not smoking. Heck, we had an engine come in last month that would not stop smoking. We turned off the mechanical switch and even tried F7, and yet the engine continued to smoke. It’s a big pain in the butt, and I wish it would go away from our hobby.
IIRC, Seuthe of Germany offered something they labeled “engine scent” way back when I was a kid in the early 1960´s.
Although the smoke units are much more advanced than those “cigarette puffers” of the early days, the smoke still does not look right, as the clouds dissolve too quickly. I disagree that the smoke should be black - engineers were obliged to keep “a clean stack” and had to pay fines if they didn´t.
Fortunately, mine was not pressed in all the way and there was a slight gap where I gould get my finger nail worked around it until it popped off.
If yours is pressed in tightly maybe you could use a plastic, disposable knife or similar tool to work into the groove?
Coal smoke “scent” I can tolerate—in fact, enjoy. My wife bought me 250 lbs. of nice, soft bituminous a few years ago to burn in my caboose stove [Y] Yes, brings back many fond memories [:D]
A freind of mine who is into O gauge three rail has nothing but smoking engines. The smoke fluid he uses is by mega steam and they have dozens of scents including coal, diesel fuel and many others. To say the least I can’t stay too long before I start sneezing, time to leave.
It also seems I’m going backwards in my layout. I now run most of the time with out sound or smoke. The natural sounds of the wheels on the tracks does it for me and it is very relaxing. It may be 2017 but for me it is the late forties and the hey day of the gg1’s and the super steam era.
If our HO engines smoked like that and had steam/smoke from the cylinder cocks maybe some people would opt more for smoking engines. That’s pretty impressive! Very nice engines and layout too. Thanks for sending that along to us.
Roco has released a German DB class 10 Pacific in HO scale, showing cylinder exhaust and a puff of smoke when you sound the whistle, but it is not as impressive as shown in the video.
I saw the KM1 dynamic smoke feature in person a few years ago and I really was awed by its realism, but - and that´s a big but (single “t”, please) - you should turn on the smoke only in a well ventilated area. After a few moments, my eyes were irritated and I started to have breathing problems. Mind you, those locos drink smoke fluid like some folks beer at a summer BBQ!
