Lionel Smoking Caboose

Model number 6-19705 I believe also

Hi I find that the melt down on these is guys use them with full track power. Most of the early ones were designed for conventual running and not command in mind. 

Running conventual you had less voltage to the track. Now in command were putting full voltage to track causing meltdown on that older equipment.

Can be fixed by putting in a resistor that can handle the full voltage.

I'll have to look into that, I do believe it has a 1 ohm resistor in it currently (according to Lionel's replacement parts page). Would the CW-80 transformer cause problems though considering it's a "conventional" style transformer or is it still much stronger than the equipment that was around the time this caboose was produced?

Which transformer you use will not make a difference.  Its the amount of voltage you apply to the track that will possibly cause a problem.  When running in conventional mode, you typically have about 12 volts going to the track.  If you run command engines, you turn the transformer to max output - 18 volts.  18 volts will overheat the smoke unit and cause problems.  If you are running conventional, you will be fine.  If you run in command mode, I would upgrade the caboose and add a command board from Electric Railroad in there so you can set the voltage to 12 volts even though the track is set at 18.

I'll have to look into doing that just to be safe. After looking it up the CW80 runs 0-18 volts so it could still happen that way. I wonder if it would also be benificial to add some "protection" to the caboose and put some type of heat shielding inside of it though also, right on the roof above it and the sides maybe 

Joe Fermani posted:

Which transformer you use will not make a difference.  Its the amount of voltage you apply to the track that will possibly cause a problem.  When running in conventional mode, you typically have about 12 volts going to the track.  If you run command engines, you turn the transformer to max output - 18 volts.  18 volts will overheat the smoke unit and cause problems.  If you are running conventional, you will be fine.  If you run in command mode, I would upgrade the caboose and add a command board from Electric Railroad in there so you can set the voltage to 12 volts even though the track is set at 18.

Dead on! Man you guys are good!Nick

I'd just stick a diode in series with the smoke unit for command operation.  This cuts the power down and usually solves any overheating issue on 18 volts.