A couple months ago, I asked fellow collectors if their 436 Power Station smoke stack was mounted to the left or to the right.

http://www.tcamembers.org/articles/collecting/436SMOKESTACK/index.html

Here are the results of my mini- survey: 10 Power Stations had the smoke stack on the left

and only one had the stack on the right.

Does this make this 436 Power Station with a right-handed smoke stack a factory error, a hard-to-find variation, or possibly a pre-production sample? Surely, a survey of only 11 Power Stations won’t give us an answer with many others out there.

So check your layouts, check your inventories, check with your fellow collectors. Then email me at fuga@aol.com and write in the “subject” line either “Smoke Stack Right” or “Smoke Stack Left.” That way I can easily count the number of lefts and rights without opening the emails. Then I’ll let you know just how unusual a right-handed smoke stack is.