I picked up a CMP PFE Reefer at the Tidewater NMRA show yesterday in VA. Beach, nice looking car.
Did this line become part of Weaver?
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Crown Model Products were originally made by Don Stubbs of Northeast Trains in Peabody, MA. . He had the molds made of both a Reefer and a Steel Box Car.
The cars were assembled in Waltham, MA. . They did use Weaver trucks and couplers. Different runs produced different road names. Not sure if any partners were involved in the project. I believe Don sold out locally and they were produced for a while and then Weaver ended up with the line.
Bob
From the O Scale Freight Car Guide to Wood Side and Express Reefers:
Weaver's 40 foot wood sided refrigerator car is based on the former Crown tooling. It has a Murphy rectangular panel roof and 4/4 ends.
https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...-and-express-reefers
If you have the time to post photos of your Crown reefer and its box they would make nice additions to the information available on that thread. While the CMP/Weaver reefer and boxcars have less detail than more recently introduced models they fill a unique niche in the market. They are scale sized models of 1930s prototypes that no one else has made and they are small enough to appeal to both scale and traditional operators.
Thanks Ted, will do!
Dave, thanks for that info! The box I have says Newton, MA vice Waltham, MA, but I saw a photo of one on the internet that said Waltham.
Dave, don't forget he was partners with Mike McCormack. Don sold out to Mike. Mike sold the outside braced cars to Weaver.
Marty, I remember going to a show with you in Stamford, Conn. and seeing their fantastic layout. Don had the prototypes of the 2 cars there with order forms. The reason for producing these cars were that they appealed to both scale and 3 rail runners. They were scale in size but wouldn't look out of place with 6464 boxcar. Using Weaver trucks and couplers it was a simple switch. Along with Weaver's PS 1 boxcars these were probably the start of 3 rail scale as far as rolling stock. Kind of a bold move seeing Lionel's scale rolling stock never really took off. The Crown cars were reasonably priced with nice graphics, multiple rd. nos. and we're built right here in Massachusetts.
Dave, you are correct. I was at that show and did not know you at that time. The cars were very well done. I had several of the outside braced cars when he produced them. Don took me to where they painted the cars. The facility was at the backside of the old Waltham Watch factory in Waltham. Don did most of the painting himself.
One of their reefers gave it's life that I may practice my weathering skills. If weathering were acting, this poor CMP car would be William Shatner.
Bruce
CMP made some cars in roadnames which no one else has ever made. They even made an outside braced box for Pacific Electric. Even thought they were mostly "traction", they did have a fleet of passenger cars.
Good info guys, let's see some more CMP cars!
I've only been "O" for a little over 15 years, never looked at it before then so I missed out on all the old makers of these cars like CMP, All-Nation, even Red Caboose and InterMountain. It's funny when I see posts asking why Lionel or MTH doesn't make so-and-so and see replies like "Well, that was made by XXX back in 1962"...doesn't do a lot of good now I think to myself. The PFE reefer was the 1st CMP car I recall seeing at any train show I've been to.
I even missed out on the Pullman/Osgood/Bradley coaches Weaver made in Seaboard Air Line paint and that was in THIS century!!! Fortunately one of our fellow forumites MikeG came to the rescue with a couple of cars (not painted SAL but I can fix that) for a great price (thanks again Mike).
I'm up in canada and just found 10 crown cars new in box. never heard of them, but they are nice
Crown also made a woodside Reefer in "S". The first run had the side ladders in the wrong place & some folks squawked, so the molds were corrected for subsequent runs. I picked up a couple of them and thought they were pretty nice. Speculation is that the tooling is now with Lionel, since there are new reefers shown in the new American Flyer 2017 catalog.
Bill in FtL
I don't know how 10 of them got to Canada, but I'm enjoying them and this site for all the info on them
Does anyone know who picked up the Weaver (formerly CMP) tooling for the 40 foot outside braced boxcars. I've been looking for either a U3331 (Great Northern) or U3314 (Northern Pacific) boxcar for about 2 years now, all to no avail. I even put it on the Wanted to Buy section here a few times.
My memory tells me that Crown made a 40 steel boxcar, 1923 ara basically, which was about the same size as a Pennsy X29. They also did an outside braced boxcar that is a different protoype than the Atlas USRA car. It might be newer. There was an article in RMC at one point that seemed to represent the prototype for that car. And finally they made a 40 ft woodside reefer. I had many examples of all these cars. They were very nicely proportioned.
Weaver purchased the whole line some where along the way. They called the steel boxcar their "Steelside" boxcar. They produced many different paint schemes on all 3 car types.
The last information on the Weaver tooling is that if it was produced in the USA, the tooling went to Lionel. That seems to imply that Lionel now has the tooling for these cars.
Lionel in their latest catalog has introduced a number of the Weaver cars under their Lionscale label.
The cars i'm looking for had horizontal wood siding (simulated of course) with diagonal outside bracing; probably an early 1920's design.
Not to derail the topic, but when I first opened this up, I for sure thought you were talking Crown Metal Products, which made narrow gauge steam-powered park trains…
modeltrainsparts posted:The cars i'm looking for had horizontal wood siding (simulated of course) with diagonal outside bracing; probably an early 1920's design.
Like these?
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Exactly
I found two more on the layout.
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Gret, Don. Now if i could find either of the two i've been looking for. Eastern railroads seem plentiful , but the northwestern ones not so much.
Some years ago our club car program from another forum had the outside braced car made in Birmingham Southern. We always strove for obscure fallen flag roads. Doesn't look like much has changed since 1962. This is one of my favorite club cars. Some of the text is exclusive to our group. It would be nice to see a Lionscale version.
Don
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Hahahaha. That is great, Rail, especially that last one. Still LMAO.
rail posted:Some years ago our club car program from another forum had the outside braced car made in Birmingham Southern. We always strove for obscure fallen flag roads. Doesn't look like much has changed since 1962. This is one of my favorite club cars. Some of the text is exclusive to our group. It would be nice to see a Lionscale version.
Don
Don,
I like the Birmingham Southern car. Just for info, the Birmingham Southern, Bessemer & Lake Erie, Duluth Missabe & Iron Range, Elgin Joliet & Eastern, and Union Railroad were all owned(some for 100 years) by United States Steel until they were spun off to Transtar in the 80's-90's, and are now being sold off one by one. Much of the old/excess motive power from the northern roads ended up on the BS for parts or worked to death.
Back to Crown Model Products. Thought I'd show you guys my only Crown car which I purchased at the Latrobe Brewery/Rolling Rock gift shop some years ago before the brewery closed and moved. It's a woodsided reefer, with steel roof and ends and is 10 1/4' long. It has separately applied ladders on the sides and ends. I don't think many were made and I haven't seen another one on the secondary market for sale.
Nick
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I just found out that about 400 of these cars came to the Ottawa area in canada and some were repainted to CN and CP . from the 12 cars that I have, about 6 are repainted this way.
Sharp looking Rolling Rock reefer.
roger smith posted:I just found out that about 400 of these cars came to the Ottawa area in canada and some were repainted to CN and CP . from the 12 cars that I have, about 6 are repainted this way.
Can't recall the customizers company name, but their work wasn't restricted to only CMP products. I have a Lionel crane with TMCC from them that was formerly NYC, now CN.
Bruce
Hi Bruce, they were done by Hugh at the christmas train store in Kanata
Roger
Hello,
Does anyone know what years these Crown Model Products Reefers were made? There is very little information on the boxes.
Also, They are unopened and I don't know what material they are made of. If it says "Scale" does that mean "O" scale?
Any help would be most appreciated. Everyone here is so knowledgeable!
Suzanne
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Should be from the early 90's. The cars were scale sized. The fact that someone wrote Scale on the box. Chances are they have 2 rail trucks. These cars eventually became Weavers. They used Weaver plastic trucks. You could buy both 2 and 3 rail versions. The 3 rails came with a thumbtack coupler. Not sure as to whether the 2 rail cars came with couplers.
Wow, that was a speedy response! Thanks, Dave. Yes, The collector seemed to mostly deal in 2-Rail. So, does "Scale" mean 2 rail, or "O" gauge? I am a fish out of water and I so appreciate you time and help.
bellymoondrop posted:So, does "Scale" mean 2 rail, Two rail is distinguished by the smaller flanges on the wheels and the couplers. The track itself is two vs three rail.
"O" gauge? This describes the spacing of the rails.
"Scale" describes accurate size as 1:48. In order to allow trains to run on smaller curves, dimensions are frequently compressed. This is referred to as "Traditional" sized vs "Scale".
Thanks, Gilly!
CMP offered six REA reefers, three different numbers with gold lettering(4648, 4695 and 4775) and three other numbers with white lettering. All had the REA square on point logo. When Weaver had control, another three numbers were offered with white and three with gold. Some CMP floors were used in the early Weaver models. CMP also offered an A&P #750. John in Lansing, ILL
Thank-you John, that is helpful to know.
Bellymoondrop, I was, and remain a fan of Crown Model Products. Before Atlas, Lionel and MTH began producing quality scale 40 ft reefers, CMP was the only scale game in town for wood-sided reefers of the steam and steam-to-diesel transition era. Because they issued PFE wood-sided reefers in multiple numbers with some SP and UP herald variations I was able to build significant "reefer block" trains for my MTH cab forward to take over the mountains.
CMP also issued a set of PFE Western Pacific reefers with a beautifully rendered "Feather River Route" herald. They were in a yellowish tinted orange which really set them off from the PFEs, and one or two in a 20 car freight looked great.
When I ran southern railroads I enjoyed adding a half dozen Union Refrigerator Transit Co (Banana Dispatch) reefers to consists. Quite colorful...and prototypically correct.
CMP woodsided reefers also weathered up nicely with Floquil grimy black, 10 parts DioSol to one part Grimy black. I also added weights to all my cars (easy to do as floor attached by four screws) and shimmed the bottom to get correct coupler height for my Kadees. I use Kadees on all my freight rolling stock.
More than two decades later I still have 43 CMP reefers in my inventory to run on my layout depending on geographic region and era being represented at the time.
And, not to be overlooked, a big advantage back then (with daughters readying for college): you could buy them for around $30 each!
Of note, the just completed Scale O National Convention used CMP/Weaver wood-sided reefer bodies to issue a special "Midland Fruit Express" reefer as a convention car. It was beautifully rendered in gray with two multi-color heralds, Nickel Plate and Canandaigua Southern (John Armstrong's railroad), on each car, issued in multiple numbers. It was made in both 2-rail and 3-rail configurations.
I've got a Crown (CMP) No. 150 Port Huron & Detroit Outside Braced Boxcar, Custom Decorated For Northeast Trains. It is nicely detailed and has the warning "NOTICE: Due to small detail parts this model is not recommended for children. "Yes, I've got a "PHD!"
John
As someone brand new to the world of trains, this forum is a godsend. I've been entrusted with easily $10,000 worth of building kits & rolling stock from a friend whose father was an avid hobbyist, but now has dementia. I want to represent the items faithfully and have been doing as much research as I can on the web.
Thanks to all for your time and information.
John,
Hood's Milk Reefer No. 820 has gold lettering too.
