Followup:
I my Lionel LionChief Plus Mikado to my LHS on the weekend of York for repair, and was told it would probably take two to three weeks. After three weeks, I called the shop and was told it would be another week. Each week or so I would call and be told it would be another week until I called a week ago and they said that with the Lionel parts department move it would be at least another month-and-a-half. This past weekend, I picked up the locomotive so that I could run it until the backlog of repairs was down.
After putting it on my track and running it, I thought, "What the heck, I might as well try turning on the smoke unit just to see if it has miraculously fixed itself." What do you know, it had. The smoke unit seems to run perfectly. I am delighted.
(Note: I had repeatedly tried turning the smoke unit on and off to no avail when I was initially trying to diagnose and fix the problem.)
—Matt
