I have a Lionel Legacy Challenger 6-11201 that is blowing constant smoke. The smoke out-put is good but not in synch with the chuff. Everything else is working fine. Any ideas?
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Have you done an engine reset
I have not. I'll give that a try
While I generally agree a reset is a good idea and a good first step, here's the challenge- that's not typically how a Lionel TMCC or Legacy train chuffing and puffing works or is affected.
First, we go to the support product page for your engine so that we know what version of electronics and components are used.
6-11201 https://www.lionelsupport.com/...tive-Only-6101201001
You have an analog (read that to say chuff switch controlled) smoke unit. 
The circuit board on the smoke unit is what controls the fan motor. A KNOWN fault of many transistors is that in failure- they tend to fail shorted- AKA stuck ON, so yeah, 100% a stuck on smoke unit fan motor- no longer puffing, but you get chuffing sound- and both functions use the same source switch---- could be a failed transistor on the smoke unit PCB.
Just my opinion, but given the smoke unit PCB is not available, and if you were really good you might repair it replacing the failed surface mount transistor- which OBTW- likely blew because the fan motor is drawing excessive current- so fix that first, I would put in a super chuffer smoke fan control board, and just eliminate the failed original smoke control board. Upgrading to super chuffer would give you idle smoke fan control, fix the chuffing, and give you other speed controlled light options (cab lights, or downward facing inspection lights) over the drivers, rule17 headlight, and so forth.
Again, all that to say, first I suspect a dry bearing or failing smoke motor is the root cause, that then failed the transistor on your analog smoke unit PCB. Before replacing or repairing the failed control of the fan- fix the fan motor- probably use an MTH fan motor.
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Well, I tried the reset. It did't do anything to fix the constant smoke. However, now the railsounds are "in and out". They just cut out for a period of 5-10 seconds and come back on briefly before cutting out again. I'm not sure how a reset would have caused that?
Hard to imagine a reset caused the sound issue. Do the sound misbehave when running, of also when stopped?
For the chuffing smoke issue, I make a special version of the Super-Chuffer II for early Legacy that not only restores the chuffing smoke, but also gives you smoke at idle. If you're really ambitious, you can also have a Rule-17 LED headlight and automatic cab light control with the Super-Chuffer.
All the sound works except the chuffing. Tower com, crew talk, bell, whistle are all consistently fine chuffing will occasionally cut back in but now seems to be not working more than working. I've looked for loose connections but cant find anything.
If you're not getting chuff sounds, or they're flaky, it's most likely the cherry switch. It's activated by an axle cam, I believe it's on the front power truck on that model.
I'll take a look. Thanks
It was the cherry switch as you thought. Just took a little adjustment. Thanks very much for your help John - I appreciate it.
