got spiders???

You are not clear on the spider issue but I will tell you that allowing the smoke units to totally dry out will cause them to malfunction after long periods of non use. Always end a run of the engine with about 10 drops of fluid. When cranking up again, 10 more drops. A/C operation in my house dry up everything from my eyes to my smoke units.

No assuming you mean you have spiders on your layout! I will watch for reponses.

I've seen damage to circuit boards caused by spiders. If you have a question about "if" you've got an infectation, I'd call an exterminator. There are effective chemical treatments available.

As for your engines, pull the shell off and look. If the spiders have set-up shop inside the engine, you should be able to see it.

Just my $0.02

Gilly

beware of criters living inside trains you

buy from others and bring into your house.

pulled aoart a post war lionel GG1 and

had a nice spiders nest inside it. was lucky the eggs

hadn't hatched yet. destroyed the nest.

also bought a ZW, when I got it home a giant,

size of a quarter, spider crawled out from under

the base. I gave him the old SQUASH routeen(sp).

this guy tried to brake into the train room

if you just have your engines sitting around then it is possible a spider could crawl into the engine.  if you store your engines put them in puppy piddle pads and nothing gets in.  if your somke material has dried out and burned it is time to replace the packing.

Arizona being what it is, we have black widows and tarantulas all over the place. I killed a black widow the other day under my gas barbecue grill (right where I reach under the grill to turn on the gas). However, they haven't taken over my train room. I did find a bark scorpion (a small, hard to see, and highly venomous species) in the middle of some train parts a few months ago. The tarantulas are no problem - they are huge and to see one is startling, but they are not aggressive and won't bite unless severely provoked. 

I haven't found any critter nests in my trains, so far. 

I have no black widows thankfully in my basement, nor scorpions for that matter.  I have a series of engines that while i can smell the smoke fluid warming up or burning, no visible smoke comes out.  this happens on some atlas engines and also on my vision line hudson and my new legacy gp 9.  I think possibly i have too much fluid in them?  i have been putting fluid in at the end of the run and at the beginning as well.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

John

Got spiders and cameleons. I let the cameleons live on the layout as they eats everything else. Don