Hey guys, is there any place other than ebay to find original lionel smoke pellets??? They seem to be getting pretty rare and pricey on ebay these days. Heck, right now, i dont even own any postwar locos, but i will someday soon. And i may be only 25 years old, and have missed the postwar glorry, but i grew up with dads old postwar trains durring the holiday season, and nothing, and I mean NOTHING smells like Christmas to me more than the scent of original lionel smoke. Try as others might, nothing else even comes close!
And I know the original stuff is toxic, but hell, were all still alive right??? So it cant be too bad
Perhaps a Train Show in your area might have some?? I saw some bottles of original Pellets at the Expo Mart Train Show in Pittsburgh last month. Be prepared to pay some $$$$$$ if you find any. Take Care.
i am aware of the new smoke pellets… so, in that case another question would be has anyone here used these new pellets, and done a side by side sniffer test to the originals??? how do they stack up???
In all honesty, i am a sucker, LOL, and will probaslly end up shelling out some big bucks for the originals.
I use the repros and they smoke good but do not have that origional smell that we love…[;)]also they are expensive. I have been able to get origionals on ebay for about the same money including the shipping. even if they are broken up they work well.
I have one bottle of original pellets, for which I paid $15 for about 20 pellets and some powder. This was before the reproductions were available.
I’m fortunate to have a local shop which deals primarily in Postwar. That’s where I bought my one bottle. That same shop gets anywhere from $5 for an empty or nearly empty bottle, and as much as $50 for a full bottle.
As for the comment that they don’t have the same smell as the original, I have my doubts. The smoke original smoke pellets are primarily m-terphenyl. Considering that the synthesis procedure was originally carried out in Mario Mazzone’s kitchen, there could also be some side products present, which would primarily be o-terphenyl and p-terphenyl. I don’t know the exact synthesis used, however the production o-terphenyl would not be favored, and likely some other group which was later removed would prevent the formation of p-terphenyl at all. So, in a properly designed synthesis, the yield of *m-*terphenyl, the desired product, verses other possible isomers should be 99% or greater.
So, all that rambling aside, there shouldn’t be more than a trace amount of anything other than m-terphenyl in the original pellets.
I can confirm that 99.99% pure m-terphenyl purchased from a chemical supplier, when vaporized, smells exactly like the original smoke pellets. I suspect that this is probably the source that Toy Trains Unlimited uses for their pellets. If that’s the case, the smell should be exactly the same.
If I ever get around to ordering some reproduction pellets, I’ll run some analysis on them vs. the original and see what I get. I highly doubt, though, that there will be any difference.
I wonder if the person commenting that the reproductions smell different could be suffering from the placebo effect.
Repro toy train pellets are made by Toy tRains Unlimited in Dallas and they smell just like the original. This is pretty much confirmed by me and a ton of other operators out there.
Speaking of placebos, I read an article in CTT by Arthur Zurel (sp?) where he stated that smoke pellets didn’t creat enough smoke to show up on camera in the early days of TV. So he popped an aspirin down the stack and it smoked like crazy. This was in the 1950’s, when Lionel was seen on TV talk shows and in advertising.
Ben, I’ve often wondered if he was kidding or not. Would an aspirin smoke when heated by a post war smoke unit?
I used to get Headaches from the Blue Smoke coming from my Grandmother’s Kitchen whenever she cooked with Grease! Cough,Cough, Didn’t know if she was working on a Science Experiment or Dinner…They smelled the same.[;)][;)][:P][:P][:o)][:o)] I believe in miracles cause I lived to survive her Cooking! [:P][:P][C=:-)][C=:-)][:o)][:o)][:o)] Take Care.
Green Smoke you say??? Isn’t that what Grandpa Munster used to work with???[:P][:P][:o)][:o)] Luckily, I’ve never experienced Green Smoke…Yet![:P][:P][;)][;)][:o)][:o)] Take Care.
Aspirin tablets are acetylsalicylic acid bound with starch.
Upon heating to the temperatures present in a smoke unit, the acetylsalicylic acid, which is really just a condensation ester, will break down into acetic acid and salicylic acid.
Both of these should easily vaporize at typical smoke unit temperatures, and would certainly give a smoke-like effect. Salicylic acid, though, is an irritant, and I’d have some serious concerns about breathing it. The acetic acid certainly wouldn’t smell very nice, either.
In addition, any acetic acid, which would be liquid at room temperature, would likely cause trouble for the metal components of the smoke unit. It would certainly cause corrosion of any steel parts. It could also potentially react with the zinc parts to produce hydrogen gas, which would not be a good thing to have in your smoke unit.
I would definitely not reccomend the use of an aspirin tablet in smoke units.
