Kewanee Boiler Company of Illinois made fire tube boilers. Did it ever make any for railroad applications, such as steam generators or locomotive boilers?

I don't believe so, although I have seen an 0-4-0 that was apparently missing its original boiler that was fitted with a Kewanee boiler as part of a cosmetic restoration.

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Wow- great picture. Thanks for posting.

This is quite interesting. One would first think that a package boiler outfit like Kewanee wouldn't have made loco boilers, but here's the evidence. And the Kelly Anderson connection is also interesting.

The completed 2-8-2 boilers were shipped to Vulcan; I would have thought they were capable of building their own, but perhaps the volume of the loco order overwhelmed them.

Not quite the stretch of Lionel making Liberty Ship binnacles, or Remington-Rand making M-1 carbines, but similar. For those interested, a good book on American industry and war production is "A Call To Arms", by Maury Klein.

Howard P.

Another WWII rail industry to other products story: Union Switch & Signal made quite a number of US Army Model 1911 .45 caliber semi-automatic pistols. I'm told these, clearly identified with the US&S "pretzel" trademark, are highly prized by gun collectors. "The Switch" did other war production as well, including components for bomb detonators.

Here's a link to information on the 0-4-0 I've seen which has been cosmetically restored with a Kewanee stationary boiler.

http://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocomo ... splay=1455

It's actually a pretty good fit as you can see from the photo at the link, but the firebox end looks like the "heavy duty firebox" Kewanee boiler in the advertisement above with huge, high mounted firedoors.

I last saw this locomotive ~35 years ago. At the time, it was painted orange and was located in front of a fast food chicken restaurant off of US 52 north of Florence, SC. Apparently it's been moved elsewhere in Florence and repainted since then, but the cosmetics are otherwise about the same.

Thanks to Kelly Anderson for taking time to find, scan, and post that image.
I also didn't expect a family connection to Kewanee Boiler (to a company president no less) to show up here on Rypn, so that was very interesting too!

The article by Col. Hill was published in Trains in December, 1964. I reread it and the article doesn't mention the source for the boilers.

When I first read the article and again today I get the impression that Hill is settling some old scores, including taking a few shots at Major J.W. Marsh (although not by name), who is generally credited with the S160 design. It may be a case of sour grapes as Hill's 2-8-2s were cancelled in mid-order and many of the parts that had already be made or purchased were redirected for use on the first S160s, returned to manufactures, or scraped.

I have a copy of a boiler assembly print for a War Department 2-8-2 for India in 1944. I believe these were a broad gauge version of Hill's design. The steam dome on the Indian locomotive is lower and there are more flexible stays on the Indian locomotives than in the Kewanee ad.

Our local pawn shop has one for sale. They're asking $3500.

Brian

Lionel did make make Morse code keys, both bugs and straight keys during WWII.

Paul