Lots and lots of smoke

Whew, talk about smoke. They look like Alex M. got a hold of them.

Waiting for someone to tell you diesels shouldn't smoke like that.  LOL!

Pretty cool.

Smoke em if ya got em!

Sweet!! Who's models and how much track voltage?

Our guests would be horrified at this spectacle passing by them!

Nice, but sure would be nice if they only smoked in amounts during their acceleration... then would taper off on the "decel"...

hmmm, maybe a much needed legacy diesel feature.

What brand of track is that? It looks like two rail.

Looks very realistic for an Alco.

Now that would be a way better feature than crew talk!!

These models are my detailed scale lionel Alcos. there are two conversion articles on 3 rail scale. Don't know the track voltage, these are running on TMCC through a 1956 ZW 275.

The track is code 148 atlas two rail with an N scale code 25 strip down the center for the third rail. I did a tutorial on it in 3 rail scale several months ago. Marker inspired me to do this and it is very effective.

  J Daddy I'll post a video later of these locos smoking on acceleration and then cutting back at speed.

Thanks guys for the comments.

Ron

What did you expect from Alcos.

"Suck,Squeeze,Bang,Blow"

Lotsa smoke.

Very nice video!

Larry

Should be black smoke for true Alco product.

I'm working on the black smoke, but what a mess!

Good luck with that. Have a fire extinguisher handy.

Rob, Amen brother.

All my MTH, Atlas and Lionel engines are emitting white smoke. Excuses I can provide to prototypical nitpickers are listed below. Extracted from another site:

Black smoke is the most common emitted from diesel engines and indicates incomplete combustion of the fuel. 

Blue smoke is caused by engine lubricating oil burning.

White smoke is caused by raw, unburnt fuel passing into the exhaust stream. Common causes include ..

• Incorrect fuel injection timing
• Defective fuel injectors
• Low cylinder compression

Low cylinder compression may be caused by leaking valves, sticking piston rings, ring wear, cylinder wear, or cylinder glaze. Water entering combustion spaces will also create white smoke.  Faulty head gaskets and cracked cylinder heads or blocks are a common cause of water entry. 

They all sound like expensive repairs! Fortunately, there are no environmental concerns in my world of 3 rail trains. I have been 100% electrified for decades and my steamers use no precious water. If I could get those lionel windmills to work outside I could be using 100% renewable energy. 

All well and good concerning diesel electric locomotives, Mr. ATLLonghorn, and that, in my opinion, is why the vast majority of diesel electric locomotives don't smoke. However you failed to explain the color of smoke from steam locomotives.

Color of smoke from steam locomotives:

White = steam

black = unburned fuel

That engine has a blown turbo!  

J Daddy and Lima

MTH have that feature and the engine changes RPM sound, ever since first DCS.

Thanks for picking up my slack RoyBoy!  One question I have wondered about: I know cities had ordinances about the smoke volume produced my steamers.  What could the engineer and fireman do to affect the amount and density of smoke produced?

Thanks for any feedback.

Scott

I have to agree , those puppies smoke like crazy. Beautiful engines.

The fireman would adjust the fire properly. Some real firemen can chime in here, but there should be very little black smoke if the loco is in good working order and the fireman is on his toes.

Interestingly, a naval destroyer has a periscope so that the guys in the boiler room can observe the color and amount of smoke from the stack. You don't want the enemy spotting you from a distance.

Hi Ron • First class smoke demo & layout.

Cheers from Michigan

A small fan for a breeze, a couple of these smoke unit in the backdrop and you've got animated clouds to go with the beautiful one on your backdrop!

Which Legacy diesels have this... got to check it out. 

At least the later ones. Similar to the Big Boy the heavier the load the more smoke. As an engine accelerates and the load increases either via the train brake or labor buttons smoke increases. As the engine is throttled back or the load is lessened the smoke will decrease. 

Ron - My TMCC Santa Fe Alco PA from 2003 put out more smoke than any engine I owned, steam or diesel which included the MTH engines.  I know that many won't believe that, but it was true.  

It was embarrassing that a diesel out smoked the steam engines.  When showing the layout to visitors I didn't use the smoke function on the PA.  

Check out the Alco PA in this video at about the 55 second mark.

Thanks Howard,

That's one of my favorite videos.

Ron

When I'm firing at work, I always watch the stack and try to keep the faintest gray haze without getting a dirty stack.  Sometimes it's not in my control though.  We had a batch of coal last summer that smoked like crazy no matter how lightly you fired.  With that load I one time fired about half a shovel full spread across the entire firebox and you would have thought I had just set a bank in my fire.

Here are some more recent smoking diesels from 2011:

Ron - I should have mentioned that the smoke from your 3 units is amazing.  In the earlier TMCC version of 2003, the B unit didn't smoke.  

those Alco's should have the surgeon generals warning on the box

I haven't found that this feature really operates consistently across later Legacy engines and if you set the smoke to "High" you're going to get a large volume of it even if the train brake is off and EFX is not increased. But maybe I just have not learned to manipulate the controls in the right way. 

I understand PS3 diesels have a similar feature and with the only one I have I can see the difference in smoke levels as the RPMs ramp up.

none of those trains used their turn signals