my polar express does not smoke. i bought it used. i was told that it had very few "miles" on it. when i put some smoke fluid in it i ran it a few times around the layout and no smoke. what could be wrong with it??
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The On/OFF switch for the smoke unit is in the cab of the loco, a flashlight is helpful in seeing if the switch is in the "on" position. This is an easy fix, any Lionel service station can make reasonably inexpensive repairs to this.
Smoke switch might be in the OFF position, might need more time to warm up than you gave, burnt smoke element. Those are the things that come to mind immediately. These are not great smokers IMHO, unless they have been customized.
I found with my engine that you need to be pulling several passenger cars and it takes a little longer running time than other engines to finally get the smoke working. It does have a nice puffing effect when it gets going.
Walt
Changing to a 27 ohm smoke resistor PN 600-8141-055 will improve the output also.
Bill
Boxcar Bill is right he put a new smoke unit in my chessie steam berkshire Jr it smokes so good fills my room full of smoke LOL
I had to get a new unit installed in my engine as well, Works great now. I also had a few other upgrades done to it at the same time, firemen and enginer, along with cab, marker and headlight LED's, it really makes it look allot better. If you do a search of Polar Express you may find the video I posted of it.
It's a great toy train product out of the box for the money, but it dose need a little help to make it what it could be.
I thought that the smoke didn't work on my Polar Express when I first purchased it. But it does work quite nicely once you get up to warp factor 3 or faster. 
There is section about this towards the end of this video. http://www.lionel.com/Customer....cfm?documentID=6334
It states that for the Polar Express, and other starter set locomotives, the smoke probably only works well at more than half throttle (Using a CW-80). Once they do start smoking though, they do work pretty well. The choice of smoke fluid may have a bearing too. I only use Mega-Steam or Lionel Premium fluids, and both of these work fine in all of my locomotives.
