Just looking for an opinion and not start a panic.

Preface: I admit it, I'm a Pennsy guy.

I was in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago on a railfaning vacation with a solid buddy of mine. while on the hunt for a couple of rumored, abandoned Diesels, is found this deep inside the pile of long retired boilers. Of course I spotted the Belpaire firebox and had to investigate. This was the best I could do as both the backhead and smokebox cover were behind tons of metal and blackberry thorns. Belpaires were not unique to Pennsy locomotives, but neither were they all that common. It could be a static supply boiler, it could be a tractor boiler. Naturally I was hoping an A5s 0-4-0, but it may well be too small for even a small PRR switcher. So here it is, (perhaps fresh from that famous quarry) for you to judge.

Kelly Anderson, your thoughts on the matter are most desired.

I'm out of my depth here with steam locomotive boilers, but: does the steam dome look a bit tall for a locomotive boiler?

If that boiler is from a locomotive, it's a relatively small one -- that's a narrow firebox, the kind that would fit between two driver axles on something like a 4-4-0. A small steam switcher with a Belpaire would likely have a shallow, wide grate that would fit above drivers (see the G5s for a large example).

The tall steam dome would also indicates an older, saturated engine. But notice the main dry-pipe orientation -- it's an elbow, facing up with a tap to the right entirely outside the boiler. That is not how a locomotive of appropriate size would be plumbed, even in Russia. Someone with distinctive competence might discuss the unusual welded seams visible on the outer firebox wrapper, and the marks at where the outside steam pipes might be at the smokebox.

It might make sense to conduct a little 'industrial archaeology' and find any builder's-plate or other evidence...

Robert is right --- the dry pipe/throttle is too funny looking for a locomotive. And that last course (with the gizmos that look like they might go to the cylinders) would have someplace for a SMOKESTACK if it was the smokebox. IMHO not a boiler for a locomotive.

I'd like to see someone take a borescope, or camera with a ringlight arrangement, and see if they can get shots of the arrangement inside the firedoor or whatever this has.

I do have to say that the thing looks to be in ramarkably good shape, and that it might prove "useful" in constructing some sort of free-styled locomotive...

The lack of stays on the sides with the weld marks is strange, too. An old boiler modified to be a pressure vessel? Sometimes old boilers in Australia were adapted to be stationary steam generators (maybe the reason for the steam dome elbow?) or tanks to force creosote under pressure into sleepers (ties).

If you look at the second image, you can see what appear to be rigid stays, with the big knobby ones being flexible staybolts. It might be a repurposed locomotive boiler, it's definitely some kind of fired pressure vessel, maybe it was used in refining... something.

Maybe it's a still.

My opinion being worth exactly what you paid for it, here are my two cents.

I'm thinking that it wasn't a locomotive boiler, but it's close to one. The odd dome outlet is one clue, as are the lack of studs on the barrel for handrails, sand dome, and bell. The riveted fittings for the washout caps, are identical to those on PRR boilers, but that doesn't mean much. Also, the PRR Belpaire fireboxes I'm familiar with are nowhere near actually square, they taper every which way, not to mention being pinched in at the mud ring to fit between the wheels.

Rotary snow plows often had Belpaire boilers, perhaps that's a possibility.

That "thing" routinely surfaces as a "rediscovered" artifact in that neck of the woods by successive generations of "SPFs" (as Jim Boyd called "slobbering Pennsy foamers"). I have been told by "those in the know" that it was definitely never a railroad locomotive boiler, and the discussion above absolutely supports that contention, as it has not even any close approximation of a match to any known PRR equipment. The suspicion has been that it was an industrial supply boiler in a previous life.

The PRR didn't have any rotary snowplows, nor did any other local/regional railroad (the NYC had one), so hoping the boiler in question came out of some RR equipment goes past wishful thinking to the point of delusion. But the problem is "you can't prove a negative."

Was that the replacement boiler for the engine in the quarry?

I put that note about the quarry locomotive in the original post since, as a "slobbering Pennsy foamer", I knew that alleged locomotive would surface. Still, I gave you photos from which to work!
The mystery of the lost Belpaire can now be put to rest. A special thanks to Kelly for using his real life PRR boiler experience to offer a valid opinion.

You know, retrieving that boiler to make a half boiler model at RMPA wouldn't be the worst outcome, rather than melting it as scrap.

Except it won't have a throttle valve in the dome, nor a dry pipe, and if it's a traction engine boiler it most likely has a 'wet bottom' firebox, which will just add further confusion.

The rotary in question is LIRR 193, Cooke 11-1898, before PRR control. At some point it got a PRR tender and seems to have a Belpaire firebox, (see Scranton Yard's bottom photo.) This may also be a replacement.

Long Island (the island and the Rail Road) is directly in the path of Atlantic Winter Storms so LIRR did have use for a rotary.

It's currently unrestored at Steamtown.

Phil Mulligan

This is most likely a stationary boiler. the upturned steam outlet is the key. The steam lines and steam headers are near the ceiling in boiler rooms for clearance. Small locomotive style boilers seemed to have been popular at one time for heat or to power a small factory. Another use of the locomotive style boiler, was supplying steam to a steam engine powered oil weil pump before the advent of electric motors or internal combustion engines.

It looks like it has been freshly painted.