The newer cabooses have a totally different smoke unit. They have a 5 volt power regulated Seuthe generator. In the era before that caboose smoke units had a resistor sitting in a tube with some wicking. Those used a large 62 ohm resistor in the tube or bowl. The first series of smoking cabooses like your Reading and several others like NYC and Walbash for example used a small locomotive liquid smoke generator. They were meant for 12-14 track voltage, And with a mechanical smoke piston assembly to make it 'puff' to eject smoke from the stack. The smoke unit is mounted right next to the plastic body. At constant 18 volts these 12 volt units quickly overheat, and sometimes the piston would stick inside the cylinder there would be no air flowing to dissipate the heat would become very hot and wapr the side and around the chimney. Later models had a on/off switch for the smoke unit.
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