Hot Water posted:I always disliked the "smoking caboose" models, as they tended to make almost as much of a mess as "smoking locomotives". Then there was that absolutely BEAUTIFUL Lionel scale model of the Union Pacific steam era CA-4 caboose, which had a smoke unit but no illuminated marker lights! What were they thinking?
I'd agree with this assessment. Spending time fiddling with smoke fluid with a caboose, constantly worrying about having to fill it, risking messing up the finish of the paint, risk of burning out the smoke unit because it ran out of fluid, or having it overheat and do damage, all to see a barely perceptable whiff of smoke coming out -- the cost/benefit analysis has benefit coming up far short. Perhaps fun occasionally with a beater caboose to fool around with, but no way with new $90-$100+ cabooses these days. Just my opinion.
And leaving out marker lights on those CA-4 scale cabooses (or any caboose) was inexcusable.
