I read this on the web. It must be true. Lol.



Anyone who has been on or near a streetcar when the "smoke gets out" will appreciate this theory. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Wesley

Anybody who has owned a British car with a Lucas (prince of darkness) electrical system knows all about the smoke duct electrical transmission theory in real practice. I still have nightmares about the one steering column stalk switch that controlled almost everything on my old Marina. Hit a bump and windshield wipers came on......

It used to be available as a replacement part. Probably obsolete now.

This actually provides an opportunity to make light of a delay when you're running a car in service. I was running a streetcar once when I accidentally let the magic smoke out and had to stop. I called for help from the shop, and while we were waiting for someone to get to where I had stopped, I explained the magic smoke theory to the passengers. When the shop guy arrived, I explained to the waiting customers again that Tony had brought the streetcar equivalent of Fix-A-Flat, and this would help us enough to get back to the stop closest to the barn where we would have to change cars again. The delay wasn't terribly long because we were so close to the shop and everyone was still in good spirits through the delay and changing cars.

Model train DCC locomotives also run on magic smoke. It's quite easy to let it escape.

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We were doing a horsepower standardization run on a diesel locomotive one day when the smoke escaped from the main generator. It was followed by copper. The microprocessor caught the event in real time. It was a fascinating readout, the entire event took less than 3 seconds.

PC

Dave and Hugh mentioned Lucas Electrics (some would say those two words together are an oxymoron). You do realize that every nation has its great inventors. Here in the USA we had Bell (telephone) Edison (Light bulb, etc.) and England has Lucas--the inventor of the short-circuit!

Why do the British drink warm beer?... Lucas makes refrigerators too...

I believe that's Imperial smoke -- you'd need the metric equivalent now.

It's one of those things like Whitworth fasteners for the silencer bearings.

And it is a base canard to call Lucas the inventor of the short circuit. He is the father of the earth fault... which I grant you does have on a positive-ground system 99.44% the ability to clean the smoke from the cupric electron ducts involved.

Ah yes, Lucas refrigerators, keeps food warm!
I understand Lucas wants to get into the vacuum cleaner business--they want to produce one product that doesn't suck.
Whitworth fasteners for the silencer bearings, eh? I do have a set of Whitworth and BSF tools! At one time in my life I worked on British stuff (mostly Rolls Royces & Bentleys) and still have some wrenches from those days.

Lucas three-way switch: Off/Flicker/Dim.

Some may remember litigation that erupted between Ford and Robert Kearns,an alleged patentee of the intermittent wiper, back in the 1980s/1990s (settled for $10.2 million in 1990).

British car fans all scoffed. Every one of them knew that Lucas had invented the intermittent wiper far earlier............... albeit inadvertently.

LOL!! I will have to add the intermittent wiper story to my "Lucas Lore." In our shop we had a "Lucas Light Switch Assembly Blueprint." On it was clearly labeled the various positions: Off, On, Flicker.

The electric smoke also has a very distinct aroma. One summer day on the W&LE I was roundhouse foreman and the daily Rook(Pittsburgh) to Brewster run was calling me on the radio to tell me they heard a loud explosion. I asked them did they think they could make the hill into Brewster. We're still on the move they told me. I heard them blow for the crossing at the east end of the yard and knew they had made it. Waited outside for them to put their train away and bring the engines to the diesel pit. The wind was from the west and as they pulled from the west end of the yard I could smell the magic smoke from several hundred yards away! There was no question of which GP-35 it was, the generator room door was blown open, and looking inside, the inspection covers on the D-32 were blown off. The main generator looked like a giant copper birds nest inside. The field coils had blown to shreds. Original GP-35's have an incredible 13 steps to the transition system. Not just series to parallel but ten steps of motor field shunting. All in the name of keeping voltage to a nominal 600v. They were near the 40mph track speed when the explosion occurred. We figured the voltage was in excess of 2,300 volts. Needless to say it didn't make transition and the over voltage protection system didn't work. Just another day on the railroad!!

Reminds me of the old joke:

Why didn’t the British ever dominate the computer industry?
They couldn’t figure out how to make them leak oil.