I have used just about every smoke fluid around even original Flyer fluid in the little red ampules. Nothing today smells exactly like the original so use what ever you like. However when it comes to smoke production," A Normal" smoke fluid for me produces the best smoke. I use original Gilbert transformers. The reason I mention transformers is that they are not all the same when it comes to smoke production. MTH Z1000 uses a chopped sine wave and any locomotive that has a smoke unit will produce more smoke when using that particular transformer. The draw back is that chopped sine waves also produce a hum in whistle equipped locomotives. Lionel transformers produce a slightly higher voltage than Gilbert's and therefore will produce slightly more smoke but only when running the loco really fast.
