In my humble opinion, the TW is Lionel's worst postwar transformer. It has several issues, is why the short production lifespan. The two transformer cores in one case turns out wasn't the best idea. It is the only time Lionel tried that idea. The wiring was revised once, and that still didn't help. First is the transformers overheating. TW's have a issue with that. For some reason it is usually the aux. transformer, but not every time. Second is the heat from the overheated transformer core travels up the die cast metal control shaft and warps the large plastic handles. This is most noticeable on the whistle control handle, it will get hung up on the plastic case and not return on it's own. Lionel later used the molded case for the somewhat scarce SW. I too, would recommend a LW instead. The reason the smoke works better with the CW is it is putting about 18 volts to the track in chopped wavelength. The bad thing about CW80's and postwar trains in the chopped wave makes the motors and Eunits noticeably noisier with a growl. The smoke unit see's the 18 volts, and so does the motor, but with pulsed power the motor is starting and stopping many times a second. I would keep postwar trains with postwar transformers. Same with modern trains, they operate better with modern transformers than postwar.
