PRR smooth sided cars ...who made them ?

[Carey Williams]

Hello Door stop aficionados.

The March meet was like Christmas morning with all the wonderful tempting new (old) toys. I'm new to the O scale world so please forgive my lack of knowledge on some period pieces. Whilst walking back to my table carrying the T1 passed a set of older period smooth sided red/ maroon PRR cars that longed for an engine, thinking this was a match made in heaven, the deal was made. Initial goal was to stay prewar only but temptation for a long set of smooth sided cars to pull has moved the goal post a bit?

Hoping your sage eyes can identify this set ...wood bodies with hard board ? sides ,fiber board bottoms, light as a feather , later plastic trucks ( which will need to be replaced with something old) .

There are 7 different cars to the set ( only 4 shown) ...additionally in the hall there was one Kasiner ( smooth sided aluminum car) with same type of graphics applied to it .

These were kits ? sold by ? when?

Thank you very much for your help .

Cheers Carey

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[De Bruin]

I would guess pre-Walthers bristol board Crestlines? Anybody else?
There is a plethora of other pre-war smooth sided PS plan model manufacturers good for PRR (specifically '38 Broadway acrs) including BC-Models, Pomona Valley, Alexander, and the aforementioned Crestline which as I recall were later duplicated by Walthers in their typical wood floor/roof-metal sides format.
I rarely see the Bristol board Crestlines in good shape, they tended to warp, swell, de-laminate, blister, dimple etc with exposure to humidity over time.
If those are indeed Crestlines, they're in remarkable condition.

[bob turner]

The paint is striking! Find some bronze All Nation trucks. You will be happy with them. If you need the proper "hat" trucks, I bet we could come up with a master for Bob Stevenson to cast them.

[Erik C Lindgren]

Beautiful cars

[aterry11]

I was going to say, but it's been said the trucks are plastic American models? Not as old as cars? That Broadway should a had 43R trucks/ Napoleon hats originally equipped.
The cars can be homebuilt? 1/4 round added to the floor board and Viola.
The sides look handcut or precut? We all judge?
The Paint looks hand done! Awesome!!! Hope to paint like example, some day......
They Match the T1 Spot on and are a great find.
You Lucky Dog!!!!!
There is a story somewhere attached to these. Quite Intriguing!!
Two engines originally offered?

[Carey Williams]

Hello all
Thank you for your kind words about the set of cars ...the gentlemen that sold them had the set for several decades on his layout . I've attached photos of the other 3 cars. With a closer look .. could the painted sides be all hand done ? Looking at the striping is excellent but I found one spot that shows signs of a human . Lettering is single letters applied.. only damage on the set are two small notches ..which can be smoothed out and toned down..but they show the layered sides.
On the bottom of each cars hand written in old school pencil style are the original prices ? 32.00-36.00 each ....and that is going back a long time ago . ( I paid a little less than that per car for the set.... good value found in old school O scale) .

I'll keep my eyes open for some old school metal trucks ...to rid the set of those plastic want -to -bees.

Walther's had the smooth sided Hiawatha cars in 37 ? Crestline was a contemporary manufacturer ?

Thank you for your insights ,
Cheers Carey
Once a loop is up I'll flood you with videos of the T1 pulling the cars .

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[De Bruin]

My understanding is Crestline was a contemporary of Walthers and produced the Bristol board sided kits as an expediency around the metal shortages of the time- 1940's, and was one of the many smaller manufacturers that Walthers gobbled up. If anyone feels I have this wrong please straighten me out as I am fascinated with the whole passenger car kit galaxy.
These cars are outstanding for what they are regardless, that 12-5 duplex is the BOMB! I think these have hand punched windows; I have what I believe is a remnant of a Crestline Observation car kit and the windows are a tad uneven and suffer from the "edge-fuzz" characteristic of bristol board.

[Carey Williams]

Hello everyone ... thank you for your input and shared knowledge ... last night I picked up Alexander's book of 1940 ..... flipped to the passenger car section ..and there was one the cars "Harbor Springs" ( or shall I say another model of the car) in the description it mentions brass sides and metal roof? .... The book is filed with the work of Icken , Alexander and other unnamed master builders of the time. Interesting the same Harbor Springs drawings are also in the book .

Lots to learn in this little field during it's early days .
Cheers Carey

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[Erik C Lindgren]

Too cool Carey! Wow

[prrjim]

You might rethink about replacing the trucks with something old. The old trucks generally do roll as well as newer delrin or delrin bearing equipped trucks. Newer trucks allow much longer trains, all things considered. The cars are not superdetailed to begin with so super-detailed trucks do not make sense. And puttting "older ones" on it as a collector might do, well that is what a collector might do vs a model railroader that would probably operate/run the cars.

[De Bruin]

It appears the cars already sport ALC Delrin trucks, not accurate for those pre-war cars as built, but freely rolling though not particularly durable or clean.
Pre-war PS cars like the Broadway's typically sported triple bolster aka "Napolean Hat" trucks.

[stephen neill]

Carey - I believe what you have are cars that some modeler scratch built.

Now, Crestline; I am not aware of the name existing other than as a "trade name" that Walthers used early on. But there are a lot of things that I am not aware of.
I have a blueprint (for a kit) dated 10-1-1937 that says Crestline Models and under that, Wm K Walthers Inc. So any separate existence of Crestline would need to be before that date; I may have older ones. Also, it doesn't say "a division of" etc, which if it did would give some credence to an ides that it was something that Walthers acquired.
Steve

[Jay Criswell]

I don't know a lot about Crestline but I've seen their kits before. Looked just like a Walther's but they were in a blue box instead of orange or yellow. Same font as the Walther's also. They were obviously put out by Walther's but I don't know what differentiated them from a Walther's kit.

After posting the above I visited ebay and found this; http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-NOS-CRE ... 7675.l2557

Upon further review, I also found examples of yellow boxes with blue lettering. Exact same box as a Walther's but with the Crestline name.

Maybe Scalecraft Dave knows more about all of this.

Jay

[ScaleCraft]

I don't know, Jay. ALMOST all the stuff I have (outside of SC) is without boxes. Identifying Crestline from Walthers after buildup is going to be interesting...even if some parts were made cheaper for the Crestline series, parts swapping makes it really rough all these decades later to sort it fully.
I have (or had) parts of a couple of Crestline combines. But the sides were brass and half zero. Not really even on the lower end of the "nice" scale, so I repurposed the brass.
The CL in the add is a reefer, not a passenger car. And like I said, spotting differences between CL and Walthers might be more difficult than one would imagine.
Think about 50 years from now with folks trying to sort this out.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Last Crestline kit I had here had all embossed heavy card stock. Can't find it now.

It was a combine and I had plans to use the sides for building an interurban car.......probably a decade or two from now.

I restored a similarly constructed car years ago thinking that the sides were nice, but that the rest of car could have easily been kindling.

Think I sold that one off 3-5 years ago when I was in a purge mode.