Where can I find smoke pellets for my prewar steamers. I was told that a company is making some again. Do they have a website? If not do you guys use the real Lionel pellets that you can get off of ebay?
jimdevleerjr,
Toy Trains Unlimited sell reproduction pellots using the exact same material that Lionel used. I have purchased some and I am very happy with how well they work and smell as compared to the originals (I still have some originals).
One thing to watch for. Old smoke units may be clogged with solidified material and may have to be cleaned out or in some cases rebuilt. If you completely rebuild one, it can take 5 or so pellets until it gets to smoking good again (as well as any smoke pellet engine smokes - which is not a lot).
I have seen the TTU pellets on e-Bay or you can go their website at:
Good luck.
Regards
One quick clarification, the smoke pellet engines did not come out until after WWII. I assume you meant your older postwar steamers?
I have not tried any of the TTU pellets yet, however the two pellet engines that I have(681 and 675) have been receiving pellets from an original bottle bought with about 20 in it for $10 from the local shop. I also freqently feed them liquid smoke, either Lionel brand or JT’s Mega Steam. My 675 has the low voltage element, and puts out one heck of a lot of smoke at full throttle.
mixing pellets and liquid smoke[?][%-)][tdn]
pax[C):-)]
I have also mixed pellets and fluid sucessfully. It worked wonders on my 681 and 2026. I found that if you alternate the smoke pellets and fluid it comes out quicker and for a longer time. Normally before I added fluid to either of the two would take 10 minutes to smoke and the smoke would be almost unnoticeable after 45 minutes. Now they start smoking after 4 or 5 minutes and will smoke for 1 - 1 1/2 hrs.
I tried K-line pellets and they worked but the Lionels were stronger. It may have been that the K-line pellets I bought got wet before I got them…?
The newer pellets work just as good if not better than the old ones, they don’t give me red eye either.
The original pellets got cheaper on eBay after the introduction of the newer ones. Last December I picked up a bottle of 50 pellets for $42. Had I waited two months or so I would have gotten them for $15 or $20 from TTU… Oh well.
I have converted a 671 to liquid smoke using the kit supplied by several parts dealers. This works very well with either Lionel or MTH smoke oil and gives large volumes of smoke, not to mention being much cheaper than pellets. I have 2 more engines that I am debating whether or not to convert. I like the pellet smoke better than the liquid because it is less irritating to me.
A couple of you guys spoke of alternating pellets and liquid. Do you mean mixing them as in putting oil in, then dropping in pellets along with the oil and running the engine with both in the smoke chamber?
Also, ben10ben, you mentioned having a low voltage smoke unit in your 675. Could you explain what you mean by this?
Thanks for bringing this up. I had no idea anyone was reproducing the pellets.
Jim
In the postwar years, some of the early smokers with high spur gearing(like the 671, 2025, and a few others) had a smoke element with a turn or two less of Nichrome wire than those in the worm-geared engines like the 671 and 726. The missing turn of wire resulted in a slightly lower resistance, which made the element get hotter at lower voltages, as the higher-geared engines would run off the track at the throttle setting necessary to get a decent amount of smoke out of the higher-voltage elements.
You can convert any standard smoke element into one of these low voltage elements by just removing a turn of nichrome wire from the element. You will be suprised at the increase in smoke output. One thing, though, is that this does reduce the life of the element slightly.
Has anyone succeeded in buying pellets through the TTU website? I could find no path to do it.
By the way, they are currently selling a case of 12 bottles on Ebay, auction number 5922679806. It’s up to $50 now.
For those of you looking for a smoke pellet for the first generation ( circa 1946) Lionel engines using smoke bulb generators; the chemical that Lionel used to make these smoke pills was potassium nitrate. Those early generators worked but Potassium Nitrate is a highly corrosive chemical that with time caused the generator cylinders to corrode and deteriorate. That is why Lionel recommended that the inside of the smoke cylinder be coated with a protectant They advised using Lionel lubricant (grease ) .
The following year Lionel developed the nichrome wire heated smoke elements that used a totatly different chemical. The later smoke generators worked better and the new chemical was noncorrosive. Those smoke generators were made into the 1960’s.
Dennis,
I have always understood that #196 pellets were ammonium nitrate and not potassium nitrate. Ammonium nitrate is highly explosive(remember Oklahoma City?), and Lionel quit using them for good reasons. If you really want them to smoke, they will still smoke if given an SP pellet, though just not as much.
Lionelsoni,
I just checked the TTU website and the online ordering is part of the home page.
http://www.toytrainsunlimited.com/
Regards.
Hey guys, I had the same problem on the web site. To order you have to sign up as a member it is free. Then it sends you to an ordering page. Good luck
Angelo
I found my problem. After I first left the home page, it would not let me get back to the home page, which is where the link is for ordering the pellets. In any case, I decided not to order after seeing that the only shipping is Federal Express. I tried the dealer link and found that Lone Star in San Antonio has them. I’ll just wait until I’m down there or until I see the fellow selling them at a train show again.