Re post #9 the white cloud from the engine was unburnt fuel. The early RB211-22 engines were very slow to ignite the fuel and get the fire going during a cold start and pumped copious amounts of fuel vapour out the back.
Re post #27 the -200, -250, -500 all had RB211-524 engines which were the same as used in RR powered 747's (modified to suit the L1011).
Why did the L1011 not sell as well as the DC10?
Basically Lockheed screwed themselves. In the begining Lockheed proposed building two versions, a L1011-1 domestic version (which was built) and a L1011-2 version which was a dedicated long range aircraft with completely new wing etc. Lockheed disparaged MDC's plan to build a longrange derivative of the DC10-10 domestic version saying it would not be as efficient as their plan. In the end Lockheed could not afford to go ahead with the L1011-2 and MDC captured the market with the DC10-30/-40 long range variant which had been planned from the start. The L1011-500 was a shortened fuselage version of the L1011-1 that had a limited niche in the market.
The DC10-30 was a very capable longrange aircraft with great appeal to airlines not needing something as big as a 747-200.
Lockheed never produced a freighter version of the L1011 but did offer a conversion and there are(were) one or two around.
MDC had built DC10 freighters and combi's in production so the engineering was largely done for conversions.
Converted DC10's made better freighters than L1011's because the DC10-30 airframe was much more capable from the outset and did not need much conversion work. I think even a DC10-10 domestic version offered better freighter performance than a Tristar freighter due to differences in max landing weight and max zero fuel weight. Lockheed did offer a freighter conversion but the amount of work to go from a -1 version to a viable freighter was huge as was the cost.