Do all MTH steam engines smoke like this???

That's about right.

Yes. Since MTH introduced DCS and PS2 in both the Railking and Premier line. They have always smoked and run at SMPH increments. Anything could run with anything as far as doubleheading, pusher service or an MU. With MTH. You always knew what you were getting as far as performance with no surprises.

While MTH is still probably the smoke champ, most of my current Lionel locomotives do just fine as well.

Here's an SGL Pacific that I upgraded to Legacy.

Here's the Lionel Strasburg #89 Mogul, this is totally stock.

My C&O Yellowbelly ERR Upgrade.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

While MTH is still probably the smoke champ, most of my current Lionel locomotives do just fine as well.

Here's an SGL Pacific that I upgraded to Legacy.

Here's the Lionel Strasburg #89 Mogul, this is totally stock.

A beautiful Reading consist, John.  Do those happen to be Menards boxcars?

Back to Jeff’s question, yes most all MTH PS2 and PS3 engines smoke that way from the factory. No modifications required.

Pete

Short answer to original post:  YES!

@RadioRon posted:

A beautiful Reading consist, John.  Do those happen to be Menards boxcars?

They're about halfway Menard's cars, about half of them have MTH Premier freight trucks, I'm working my way through them.

On the other hand, a smoker like that in a living room can lead to an unhappy marriage.

@Bruce Brown posted:

On the other hand, a smoker like that in a living room can lead to an unhappy marriage.

She's very understanding! And I know how much to push!!

@Jeff T posted:

She's very understanding! And I know how much to push!!

Then as we said in the army, smoke’em if you got em’……

Pat

Is that stuff safe to breathe?

ECI

My MTH steamers smoke that much they can fill my third car garage, to the point where I am afraid it will set-off the smoke alarms in the house!!!!

That's when Sue gets really cranky!!!

Peter....Buco Australia

Too bad Lionel didn't get the tooling for MTH smoke units.😉

@EastCoastIron posted:

Is that stuff safe to breathe?

ECI

ECI,

You either must be a newbie, or you're trying to crack a joke.  Since you've left us with no clue as to which it is, for the sake of all newbies consider the following:  This question has been asked for about 85 years now.  There are several old threads on this forum that address it in quite a bit of detail.  Use the 'Search' page to find them with the search terms "smoke" and "harmful" in the box that's labeled 'Contains All of These Words'.

Hint: Why would the manufacturers put smoke units in their locomotives, and some rolling stock as well for that matter, if it was harmful in any way?

Mike

@EastCoastIron posted:

Is that stuff safe to breathe?

ECI

Well, I'm 80 and I've been breathing it all my life, you be the judge.

@EastCoastIron posted:

Is that stuff safe to breathe?

ECI

Why would you want to "breathe" it?

I'd be more concerned about the lead in the paint😉

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Well, I'm 80 and I've been breathing it all my life, you be the judge.

Ditto in both respects.

With my conventional engines, I do not get that much smoke. However with my LionChief engines running at slow speed, I get as much smoke as you show in your video of an MTH engine running at slow speed. I think the difference is that the LionChief engines have 18 volts even at slow speed while my conventional engines have much less voltage at slow speeds.

I love train smoke...and RC tank smoke: it's basically a vegetable oil, isn't it? There's probably more danger popping popcorn.

Proto 2 engines have three settings for smoke : Low medium and high.  Your engine smoke seems prototypical if you haves spent anytime around the real thing.  Additionally, there is a switch to turn off smoke.  Hope that helps.

That MTH loco looks great. That is what MTH is known for. All mine put out alot of smoke. You can turn it down a little if you like. Those smoke rings are the coolest. I read somewhere a few years ago somewhere on this forum that smoke rings mean you have too much smoke fluid in the smoke unit. Maybe someone else can chime in on that

I'm addicted to the Cut Grass scent of JT Mega Steam smoke. Vanilla and coffee scented smoke fluid is also very nice IMO.

Peter Condro recommended JT Mega Steam products to me in the Oct. 2022 York show, I bought $100 worth of their products and am glad that I did.

I wondered about the health related issue, remember seeing prior threads about it, and am glad that several of you model train experts re-affirm that you believe the smoke is safe.

I never reduce the smoke volume, and always keep it at maximum.

Arnold

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Well, I'm 80 and I've been breathing it all my life, you be the judge.

I think that Homer Simpson had smoking locomotives...

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/8...60-a7a5-ba6d60bfc959

@jini5 posted:

Those smoke rings are the coolest. I read somewhere a few years ago somewhere on this forum that smoke rings mean you have too much smoke fluid in the smoke unit. Maybe someone else can chime in on that

No, smoke rings is not generally a sign the smoke unit has too much fluid.

The MTH smoke fan control has dynamic braking meaning it starts and stops the fan during chuffing very fast rather than letting the fan coast to a stop. This creates the sharp and short air blast effect which is what causes the smoke rings at around 17 scale MPH in most MTH Steam locomotives I have tested.

I have seen instances where a just filled smoke unit, or fluid condensation in the smoke funnel area above the smoke unit gets a drop of fluid that gravity pulls down but surface tension causes the drop to block the smoke exit hole. The air blast puffs intermittently blow this stuck drop (again surface tension and gravity, fighting smoke exitingblowing upward) are also one way I have seen smoke rings form, but that is NOT a sign of overfilling. That is just not getting all the fluid into the smoke unit rather than it still being in the funnel area BEFORE using the smoke unit. This also leads to wet drops of fluid being blown out the stack onto shell around the smoke stack. Again, it's not actually over filled. It's fluid that during filling- failed to make it's way down to the smoke unit cup and wick, before you started to run the loco again with the smoke unit on causing this wet stack effect.

@Golden Prairie Railroad posted:

I love train smoke...and RC tank smoke: it's basically a vegetable oil, isn't it? There's probably more danger popping popcorn.

No, at least both MTH and Lionel smoke fluid are based on commercial theatrical smoke fluid formulations that contain mixtures of propylene glycol and distilled water and also possibly glycerol (glycerine). Again, while the exact formulation and ratios might be a secret- this smoke fluid basic chemistry is well known and tested.

I do not know what is in JT's Megasteam but does appear to be different from my own experience and smell of the unscented version. I'm no chemical engineer- I'm only going off of my experience.

A good old page about commercial smoke/ fog machine fluid.

@John in California posted:

With my conventional engines, I do not get that much smoke. However with my LionChief engines running at slow speed, I get as much smoke as you show in your video of an MTH engine running at slow speed. I think the difference is that the LionChief engines have 18 volts even at slow speed while my conventional engines have much less voltage at slow speeds.

While you are making a semi valid observation of track voltage, there are facts about the Lionchief you may not know.

#1 Lionchief engines use an 18 Ohm resistor and a form of voltage/power regulation from the Lionchief control board. This is what allows a Lionel engine to smoke the same even at lesser track voltage than 18 Volts. The smoke unit is not anywhere near as dependent on track voltage and further is designed around a lower source voltage so that the regulator can make it work over a wide range of track voltage.

#2 Many conventional engines use either 27 Ohm and some even higher like 30 Ohm resistors and NO power regulation from track voltage. Thus- on these engines- there is direct correlation to track voltage and most specifically complete lack of any regulation.

Edit, I'll also add that modern MTH and Lionel smoke units are using 8 to 16 Ohm resistors and regulation (Lionchief Plus, Legacy, even some TMCC advanced engines). The lower the resistor value- the lower the voltage so some modern trains can and do smoke at 8-10 Volts- but again, this is by design and must have voltage regulation capable of feeding those lower value resistors. It's really the addition of smoke control circuitry and lower value resistor that allows this.

Thank you, Vernon Barry, for correcting my Dummkopf response. I wrote "''it's basically a vegetable oil, isn't it?' " And Vernon Barry explained that "mixtures of propylene glycol and distilled water and also possibly glycerol (glycerine)."  Good grief! I have theatrical smoke fluid for a smoke machine (at ) and the general formula is right on the bottle. Worse yet, I have been told about the ingredients in train (and Radio Controlled tank) smoke fluid. As my friends say, too, "I'm old."

@Vernon Barry posted:

Edit, I'll also add that modern MTH and Lionel smoke units are using 8 to 16 Ohm resistors and regulation (Lionchief Plus, Legacy, even some TMCC advanced engines). The lower the resistor value- the lower the voltage so some modern trains can and do smoke at 8-10 Volts- but again, this is by design and must have voltage regulation capable of feeding those lower value resistors. It's really the addition of smoke control circuitry and lower value resistor that allows this.

The problem with the TMCC and early Legacy models with smoke regulators is the regulators are no longer available!  For TMCC it's possible to do a couple of wiring changes, swap the resistor, and run the smoke from the R2LC.  However, with early Legacy (modular boards), you're out of luck when the smoke regulator croaks, there is no replacement available.