K-Line Smoking caboose

I have several. Good detail. Trucks are metal side frames two center rail pick ups. All of mine date back before TMCC and are not designed for 18 volts. If you are conventional they should work ok. Some report the smoke units over heat.

I convert mine to GRJ's passenger car light module and led strips. I remove the smoke system. The Western Depot has a large stock and last year had a Holiday sale. They are a OGR advertiser.

Richard

I have two K line smoking cabooses.  Both have great detail and look fabulous.   Their smoke units do overheat when the smoke is on.  One of my caboose's roof began to melt due to the heat.  Luckily I noticed the melting instantly and saved the caboose from a total melt down ... or worse yet a fire on my layout.  I now run these cabooses with the smoke turned off and have had no problems.  I do enjoy their great detail and wonderful looks!  

@trumpettrain posted:

I have two K line smoking cabooses.  Both have great detail and look fabulous.   Their smoke units do overheat when the smoke is on.  One of my caboose's roof began to melt due to the heat.  Luckily I noticed the melting instantly and saved the caboose from a total melt down ... or worse yet a fire on my layout.  I now run these cabooses with the smoke turned off and have had no problems.  I do enjoy their great detail and wonderful looks!  

Thanks for the heads up Pat! I’ll have to watch out for that.

I agree with the above. Awesome scale sized and detailed units. I turn the smoke unit off as well. They always seem to overheat even im conventional.  FWIW The only smoking caboose I've ever had luck with was the Lionel LTI or maybe MPC  era smoking caboose that has an actual puffer unit. It smoked well and never overheated.

These are nice, I just make sure I don't smoke them too long. I also use them running DCS Variable limiting the voltage to around 12 volts. So, although very nice, the smoke unit gets hot. Not much you can really do about that. I've heard of some people using some aluminum foil to protect the roof around the stack. Probably helps a bit.

FWIW, many of the K-Line cabooses weren't designed for steady 18V on the tracks, so the smoke unit overheated.  Even so, my "fix" for a few of them is to put a small fan driven smoke unit in them, I was using one of the MTH HO smoke units.

I bought one last spring; very nice details, but I don't use the smoke unit. Experimenting with a smoke unit in a plastic car is not something I'm interested in.

@BlueComet400 posted:

I bought one last spring; very nice details, but I don't use the smoke unit. Experimenting with a smoke unit in a plastic car is not something I'm interested in.

The fan driven smoke units don't get hot, that's why I used them.

ok. thanks for the advice. i guess I will pass on them since the biggest reason was that it smoked, plus I liked the (gray & Red) Lackawanna roadname

@yardtrain posted:

ok. thanks for the advice. i guess I will pass on them since the biggest reason was that it smoked, plus I liked the (gray & Red) Lackawanna roadname

@yardtrain  I got a K-Line Lackawanna smoking caboose  K612-1471   Maybe it's the one you were looking at. The bottom of the car has a switch for TMCC or Conventional operation. When operating in a command control environment the switch must be set to TMCC to protect the smoke unit under constant 18 volts. (I'm guessing that it would limit the voltage while still allowing the smoke unit to operate, but the experts here may offer a correction.) In my experience the smoke unit under conventional worked but output was not heavy. Then again, I suppose a caboose stove wouldn't produce a lot of smoke. Unrelated to that the interior lighting works but is very dim unless under full power when running conventionally. I only have a conventionally-controlled Lackawanna locomotive and I like to run slow, which means for me there's not a lot of visible light. That said it's a beautiful car and I like it. No regrets.

John