Re: Crown Metal Works/How Many 36"

My very first railroad gig was running a 36" Crown at Legend City amusement park in Phoenix. Their Crown was I believe one of the first 36" they built. I know they used pics of it in thier catalogue.
The big limitation of the Crown is lack of heating surface. There was only about 30 flues in the boiler and an itty bitty firebox. Our Crown originally burned coal, but quickly was rebuilt as an oil (#2 diesel) burner. It had a home made burner that was a bit marginal. Crown's locomotives were made with very few castings, the saddle was a fabrication of 2 cast cylinders bolted to a fabricated steel saddle. Live steam and exhaust was carried to and from the cylinders by pipe fittings (which leaked all the time). They completely muffed the idea of how a smokebox worked. The dry pipe and exhaust pipe went through the bottom of the smokebox by way of a large hole completely destroying the idea of creating a vacuum for the draft. We plugged the holes up and it actually started to make steam.
We replaced the gasoline generator with a Pyle K2 dynamo. Crown said the boiler wouldn't handle it, but we did anyway - and it worked.
It was crude, it had a great 5 chime whistle, and sounded nice - and was the only game in town back in the 1970's.