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Hello All,

 

Just got my mitts on a Lionel 736 Berkshire and set from 1950.  I called down to the Train Shop to see if they carry smoke pellets.  They do.  However, the man I spoke to on the phone said that I could use smoke fluid instead of pellets for my engine as long as I do not have a smoke bulb.  I don't think I have a smoke bulb.  When I look down the stack there are small wire strips that look like toaster heating elements.  When I open the smokebox door there is a standard screw base lightbulb.  Is it safe to use smoke fluid in this engine?  If I do are there any pointers to follow?  It's not that I don't trust my dealer --- I just want to make sure I don't damage such a valuable engine.

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

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You're fine.  The first Lionel smoke system used a very expensive light bulb with a "dimple" and a fairly noxious smoke pellet.   This was back in the late 1930's.   Later smoke units used parathane pellets and a heating element (nichrome wire) to melt the pellets and make the smoke vapor.   The nichrome wire units can use liquid smoke fluid so long as the wire isn't too heavily crusted with the older pellet residue.

Lionel bulb type smoke units were used in the 1946 line only.

Only turbines and Berkshires had them.

Before you decide to put smoke fluid in there, you may wish to consider that the aroma of liquid smoke is very different than the pellets. That written, many people do use the fluid.

 

Your Berkshire may have enough residual smoke material in the smoke unit to smoke for a while before you need to add anything. One of the biggest problems with pellet type smoke units is putting too many pellets in there.

Cory, the small bulb you see is the headlight bulb.  The wire resistor is the smoke element.  As CW said, only the 46 units had the bulb.

 

I believe TrainZ makes an after market pill.  Or many convert the unit to a liquid element like Lionel uses on the modern engines prior to the fan driven units.  Or you use liquid with your current unit.  G

One more tip: Do not put anything other than smoke material into the smokestack / smoke unit.
The second most common problem with pellet type smoke units is physical damage from people putting foreign objects down the stack and breaking the heater element.
Lionel did provide a wooden tamping tool, but it was shaped to minimize the possibility of damage. It could only be inserted just so far.

If your inclined you can remove the smoke chamber from the locomotive and carefully remove the cap which will have the element attached and scrape the bottom of the chamber clean but save the remnants, old melted smoke pellets and wading. Then you can pack the bottom of the chamber with a small amount of pink fiberglass insulation, then carefully snap the cap back on. 

 

You can then break up the remnants of the old smoke pellets you scrapped and use that for a long time, just remember not to add too much.  I've done this on all of my postwar engines, it actually makes the smoke units work better and I have the original smoke pellet smoke.

 

Paul

I figure I'd post a few pics of a Lionel postwar 736 that I cleaned out the smoke unit on a few weeks ago to show how easy it really is, if anyone is interested...

 

 

 

 

The pink is the wadding and the white is the smoke pellet powder which is very usable.  I packed the chamber with pick fiberglass insulation then added a few drops of smoke fluid to keep it from charring then reassembled the unit and added "some" of the powder and it started to smoke immediately.  What a great scent!

 

Paul

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