Bachmann HO 4 8 4 War Baby Steam Locomotive SouthernPacific

[Bigfingers]

Howdy and Merry Christmas. We (wife aka "BOSS") and I have Christmas Village goes up once a year. Always  clean every piece of silver track before putting into operation and as taking down after holidays. This year the smoke unit doesn't function. Have tried carefully to clean the unit with no success on smoke generation. Engine runs fine and pulls 3 -7 Spectrum heavyweight passenger cars with no problems. Smoke is a big thing for us.
If the engine doesn't smoke then it doesn't give friends, family or us the enjoyment we expect. Yes, wrote a book, sorry for that. Any ideas on getting the smoke unit working would be greatly appreciated by this "rookie" HO train operator and his wife ("BOSS").
Smiles, Gods' Blessings,
Frank aka "BIGFINGERS"

[ABC]

Are you running it at full throttle? Usually it takes a while to get going by running it all out for a while, then you can turn it back some, but the speed of the locomotive is directly proportional to the smoke output of the locomotive. Keep in mind the smoke units in the Bachmann engines are more of a novelty, and tend not to work too well. (The price of the engine and the quality of the smoke unit go hand in hand, so if you want a good one maybe get an MTH or BLI engine as the smoke units in those are better. But the Bachmann locos are what they are, they are affordable, good running, and pretty detailed.)

[Bigfingers]

Merry Christmas Mr. ABC and many thanks for your reply. It is helpful, informative and greatly appreciated. I shall surf the web looking for the MTH and BLI units you have mentioned. I have seen some DCC steam engines with smoke, sound, etc. Would these functions work work with our dc MRC 220 or would  a DCC controller be required to operare these DCC equipped trains? I also plan to start reading up on these things very shortly in hopes of gaining a bit more knowledge. Again thank you for the reply.
Gods' Blessings to you and yours,
Frank aka "Bigfingers"

[ABC]

Here's an example of an MTH unit: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290375118238&rvr_id=&crlp=1_263602_263622&UA=WXF%3F&GUID=60f974ef1250a0266205fd75ffaae444&itemid=290375118238&ff4=263602_263622
I'm pretty sure Broadway Limited has smoke too.
But with these, you would be able to run the locos with basic sounds, but you may still have difficulty with the smoke until you switch to DCC because you'll still need to run it at full speed to generate enough heat for the smoke machine to work really well. DCC would solve this by supply sufficient power without having to run the loco 140 scale mph.