Success! Thanks, Jonathan. Yes, ours is pre-DCC, smoke oil down the stack. Was out for a few hours, came home and fired it up to full speed and it worked almost instantly. Not terribly realistic, true, but to a 9-year-old, delightful!
Cheers,
PF

My son just bought the USRA 0-6-0 locomotive and the smoke doesn't seem to work... This is our first steam engine with this feature, so I'm not sure if it takes some time for it to get going. It's been running pretty steadily at about 1/2 speed for 20-30 minutes so far. I did just read a few online reviews that said it was hit or miss with this model. Any suggestions? Thanks!