Ok I want to know who makes the best smoke units? Lionel? MTH? or TRAIN AMERICAS STUDIOS ? I want one that puts out alot of smoke!
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I would also like to know which smoke unit would work best for a steel mill or power company.
MTH units have consistently put out the most smoke, but the most recent Lionel units are competitive. The TAS units are no longer available. They were decent smokers but, like older Lionel units, they can be improved with the modifications shown in the recent Lionel video by Mike Reagan (who of course used to run TAS).
From what I've seen, the MTH engines put out tons of smoke, but I think that can "get old, fast". I've seen at shows that the modular layouts putting out a lot of smoke have kids (and adults) waving their hands as though the smoke was going to kill them. I find that very distracting to the fun aspect of the layout.
J.D.S. Limited Productions displayed locomotives at York with prodigious smoke as well as whistle smoke/steam and smoke/steam from the dynamo. Go to www.jdslimitedproductions.com and look around.
there was a lot of talk about smoke units a few months ago;
they was mostly taking about smoke units for buildings..Im asking for trains.
IMHO, there's too much variation in the smoke units that Lionel has used over the last several years to allow for generalization about them. More recent units (Vision, Legacy locos) generally put out a lot of smoke when set to "high" via the Legacy remote but this is not always the case.
MTH smoke units on the other hand consistently put out a lot of smoke probably because they have a two resistor design in which part of the wicking is looped between the resistors.
That said, the greatest smoker of all is the Lionel Legacy FEF-3, which spews large puffs of white smoke in perfect time to the chuff sounds.
Final point: If you want a large volume of smoke you have to use Megasteam smoke fluid, which I have found beats the competing Lionel and MTH products by a wide margin.
