Re: Crown Metal Products 36" 4-4-0s

I ran a 3-foot Crown about 30 years ago when I started this steam railroad stuff. The best discription I can give of a Crown locmotive is "crude but sturdy" They are built to do the amusement park gig, and not much more. They lack boiler capacity (itty bitty fireboxes and very few flues - I remember about 32 flues in the boiler). There was no smokebox saddle. The smokebox was supported by steel angle iron and the live steam and exhaust lines were made of pipe fittings (that leaked). Crown didn't comprehend how a smokebox was supposed to work and cut a big hole in the bottom to run the steam and exhaust lines. So a built, draft was pretty much nonexistant. Before I came along someone welded some steel around the pipes and filled in the gaps with some sort of sealer that made her steam a bunch better, but it was still pretty marginal.