Tell Me About the Lionel/MTH 840 Power Station Reissue

You will get better answers if you post this on the Tinplate forum.

 

The MTH is made similiar to the original. 10 dash items will say MTH on the smokestack. 11 dash will say Lionel. I do not know how well they smoke although I have a 10 dash unit. Just never fired it up. I do not think it has a fan for smoke. It does have the knife switches on the side like the original.

 

The Lionel unit has frosted windows and no knife switches unlike the original.

 

 

The smoke unit is fan-driven and is similar to the smoke units used in Proto-Sound (PS1) locomotives except larger.  As Jim stated, one of the knife switches turns it off.  A friend of mine has one and it smokes really well.

Bill, is the one with the fan-driven smoke unit you refer to a Lionel or an MTH? What I'm trying to figure out is if the MTH and the Lionel are the same exact unit, but with a different badge on the smokestacks...

The one my friend owns is the MTH Tinplate Traditions version.  MTH's Tinplate Traditions and Lionel Corporation Tinplate versions should be the same except that the latter has Lionel markings and different packaging.

The one that Lionel produced themselves in the late 1990s (i.e. not produced by MTH) did not have the knife switches and if it had smoke, it probably did not smoke well without modification.

Not sure what version mine is. I received it used in an MTH outer shipping carton, no identifying numbers on the carton, no inner box, brass inserts over doors read "No. 840 Power Station", no smoke unit, but with knife switches.

 

 

Jim

Jim,

 

That is probably an early one that MTH made in the 1980s before they made the tinplate items in the Lionel Classics line for Lionel.

That's what I figure too, Bill. It was received in a collection with other items from that same era.

 

I was surprised to see how many different remakes were produced over the years. I'm going to have to look up those other product numbers.

 

Jim