After World War II, Lionel and A. C. Gilbert raced to be the first to offer smoking steam locomotives.

Gilberts The secret of Lionels smoke American Flyer trains beat Lionel to the p nch by a period pellets of days in anno ncing its first smoking locomotive in !"#$. %moke research at both companies &as shro ded in secrecy, and the make p of Lionels smoke pellets remained a mystery for decades. Four strikes Lionels first smoke nit, designed by chief engineer 'oseph (onanno and sed on three locomotives in !"#$, &as short)lived for a n mber of reasons. First, the specially shaped headlight b lb that heated an ammoni m nitrate pellet belo& the smokestack &as some&hat fragile and relatively e*pensive to man fact re. %econd, d ring operation the entire pellet melted at once, and if the locomotive &ere t rned pside do&n, molten material &o ld spill o t. +Ammoni m nitrate melts at ,,-.F./ 0hird, the spilled ammoni m nitrate 1 a salt thats a member of the same chemical family as the sodi m chloride sed to melt ice in &inter 1 corroded the inside of the locomotive. 0hink of the r st damage done to yo r a tomobile by road salt and then imagine ho& m ch more destr ctive it &o ld be at oven temperat res. And fo rth, perhaps the most compelling reason for Lionel to reinvent the smoke nit, may have been a shipping disaster on April !$, !"#2. 0he French ship Grandcamp, loaded &ith 3,,44 tons of ammoni m nitrate, e*ploded at its dock in Galveston (ay near 0e*as City, 0e*as. 0he blast fl ng the ships !.5)ton anchor more than t&o miles, sent a m shroom)shaped clo d 3,444 feet into the air, knocked t&o aircraft o t of the sky, generated a !5)foot tidal &ave that drove a ,4)ton barge !44 feet inland, and ca sed a second disastero s e*plosion the ne*t morning. Altogether 5$, persons died and over ,,444 people lost their homes. 0hereafter, Lionel or any toy company &o ld hardly dare to market 6harmless7 smoke pellets made of ammoni m nitrate. Try, try again (ack at Lionel, Frank 8ettit, the firms development engineer, designed a ne& smoke device, smaller than the first one, that consisted of a resistance)&ire heater pl s a piston that ble& p ffs of air in rhythm &ith the locomotives &heels. 9ean&hile, 9ario 9a::one, a Lionel chemist, searched for a s bstance that &o ld vapori:e easily in the heater then condense into a &hite clo d &hen it contacted cool air. ;e event ally settled on a &hite, &a*y solid compo nd. 9a::one p rified the compo nd in his kitchen, pressed it into tiny pills, and dried them on trays spread on his dining room table. After s ccessf l tests, Lionel r shed the ne& smoke nit into prod ction. <espite this s ccess, 9a::one &as neasy. Lionel &o ld event ally get the patent for the smoke nit in !"5,, b t &hat &as in it for him= 0o protect himself, 9a::one never told anyone &hat &as in the smoke pills. >vent ally he &ent into b siness for himself nder the name of A:o Ind stries, man fact ring the pellets b t still never revealing their ingredients, even to his employees. 9a::one s pplied smoke pellets to the Lionel Corp. ntil the end of the post&ar era, then sold his b siness to General 9ills 98C &hen it began making Lionel trains in !"24. %moke pellets +item no. 3"!!/ &ere available ntil !"2,. Mystery solved >*actly &hat &as inside those &a*y pills remained a mystery for nearly ,4 years. In !"25, a c rio s chemist and toy train fanatic 1 <r. ;erbert C. 6Chip7 9iller, then employed at %o thern ?esearch Instit te in (irmingham, Ala. 1 took it pon himself to solve the mystery. 0hro gh testing, 9iller discovered that the pellet &as made of meta) terphenyl, a &hite, &a*y solid that &as

sed primarily as a coolant@electrical ins lator in high)voltage transformers

The secrets of smoke

0he sight of a toy train locomotive p ffing across a layo t, its rhythmic &hite e*ha st reaching o t to the sky, is as captivating today as it &as &hen the first smoking A ga ge locomotive deb ted more than 54 years ago. How it works In modern toy train smoke nits, a heating element inside the locomotive vapori:es the smoke fl id, &hich is a light&eight oil that varies in viscosity depending on the brand. When the vapors come into contact &ith cool air, they condense to form a colloid that consists of liB id droplets dispersed in air 1 in other &ords, a fog. 9eteorological fog forms the same &ay &hen &arm, moist re)laden air moves into cooler territory. Colloids tend to stay s spended in air beca se each particle has some static electric charge. %ince the particles are small and each of them repels the others, they do not B ickly settle. Colloids look 6smoky7 beca se the s spended particles are large eno gh to scatter light. 0he classic test for recogni:ing a colloid is the ability to see the path of a light beam shining thro gh it. 0his is called the 0yndall >ffect. A familiar e*ample is a searchlight beam probing the sky at night, like in the beginning of a 34th Cent ry Fo* movie. 0he light beam &o ld be invisible if it &ere passing thro gh clean, dry air, b t becomes visible &hen particles of d st, smoke, and moist re reflect the light. Whether Lionels catalog artists reali:ed it or not, the beam from the headlights of post&ar Lionel locomotives depict the 0yndall >ffect. 0here m st have been a lot of air poll tion in LionelvilleC Solid and liquid Lionel &as the only company to develop and market a solid smoke pellet. All b t the pellets prod ced in !"#$ &ere made from a secret &a*y compo nd called meta) terphenyl. A. C. Gilbert and 9ar* al&ays sed smoke fl id. Lionel began sing smoke fl id in !"52, and today, o&ners of post&ar smoke)pellet locomotives often convert them to se smoke fl id. 9an fact rers seldom specify the e*act chemical properties of their smoke fl ids, b t the fl ids associated &ith Lionel, 90;, D)Line, and Williams are all oils of varying viscosity. 9an fact rers tend to recommend only certain fl ids in their smoke nits, &hich like&ise vary slightly in design from one train maker to another. While the smoke) nit principle remains the same, modern man fact rers have made vast improvements aimed at realism. A tp t, for one, is greatly increased. %ome locomotives se b ilt)in fans to drive the 6smoke7 o t the stack. >lectronic controls can also synchroni:e the e*ha st rate to the trains speed and so nd system. %ome locomotives are designed to allo& 6steam7 to appear in other places that steam tended to escape on real locomotives. ?ecent diesel locomotives also se liB id smoke nits. Second hand smoke Is this toy train pse do)smoke harmf l to yo r health=

Well, a Ear of p re meta)terphenyl is labeled an 6irritant,7 meaning that chronic e*pos re can irritate the eyes, skin, and m co s membranes. %ome chemical s bstances in smoke fl id can also be moderate eye irritants and slight irritants to m co s membranes. Common sense s ggests that hobbyists provide themselves &ith at least some ventilation in their train rooms and that they find some fresh air if they e*perience headaches, sore throats, eye irritation, or itching skin after standing in a clo d of toy train 6smoke.7 Can the 6smoke7 from yo r toy train trigger a smoke alarm= 0he ans&er is B alified yes, if eno gh of it reaches the detector. 0&o types of smoke detectors are sold for home fire protection. In the first, a photoelectric detector shines a beam of light thro gh an air channel and is activated if something in the air is opaB e eno gh to obstr ct the beam. In the second, an ioni:ation detector contains a tiny radioactive so rce + s ally americi m 3#!/ that emits alpha particles, &hich ioni:e air and allo& a c rrent to pass. 0his type of detector is tripped &hen something interr pts the c rrent. 0oy train 6smoke7 can activate either type of smoke detector beca se the colloidal particles reflect light and beca se they interfere &ith ioni:ation c rrent. ;o&ever, yo might have to bring yo r smoke detector do&n to trackside to trigger its &arning b ::er. 0oy train smoke seldom rises to the ceiling beca se it is cooler and therefore denser than the comb stion smoke prod ced by a real fire. !y any other name 0hat toy train smoke is tr ly a fog isnt all that important. Whats important is the image it conveys. (illo&ing clo ds of 6smoke7 from a steam locomotive r mbling do&n the track are part of the toy train scene. Its hard to imagine toy trains any other &ay, even after half a cent ry of innovation.