Lionel has used a version of that smoke unit since 1967 or so. It used to be made out of metal in the post war era, the change to plastic seems to have made it rather delicate, and yes they still use it with a slightly different casing on Lionchief engines. Apart from the change from metal to plastic, the the only major changes I have found are the mounts for lights chuff switches, or sound of steam switches.
Mine kinda works and I used nothing but Lionel directions, which there are two versions for the same set, one printed on the bottle that came with the set, and one at part on the manual with the set for the engine ect. , which was down right odd.