I have a Lionel train and DON'T want the smoke to come out of the engine - I have a small room and the smoke is too much if you run the train for any length of time. If I stop using the drops that create the smoke, will it hurt the engine in any way?
I don't beleive that it would. I am sure that many a person has let it run dry by accident and not had a problem. If you are handy with tools you could take the engine apart and disconect the wire that goes to the smoke generator. I have an old HO Lionel with a smoke generator that had run for years without smoke. I put some oil in and it started working again.
I don't know what vintage your Lionel might be? However, I had quite a bit of O and O-27 years ago. Most of the time, I did not use the smoke. I cannot see how there'd be any harm to the engine. Worst case scenario, the smoke generator would quit. But everything else should operate just as normal. Boxcab E50
I had the opposite problem with the Polar Express Berkshire set I bought this past Christmas. I wanted it to smoke, but it really never did very well. I thought I read that if you don't keep the smoke generator wetted with oil (versus the pellet type), you can damage the generator and it won't work if it burns out. So... if you have the oil type, and you just run it dry, and you don't care if it never smokes again, maybe that will work.
My bdad's lionel engine is nearly 50 years old, never had smoke oil in it for nearly 30, just this past christmas we put a few drops of sewing machine oil in it.....beautiful!
