EBT Virtual Tour
Boiler House

Photo of Boiler House Photo of Boiler House
Mile Mark: 11.00
Elevation: 630'
Date Built: pre-1894
Also see the Boiler House in the EBT Virtual Shops Tour.

The Boiler House was part of the replacement shops complex built after an 1882 fire that destroyed most of the original 1870's shops. Originally it was equipped with a single boiler and stack, likely today's east one. The building has a heavy brick east and southeast wall with the rainder being frame joined to the other shop buildings. The roof is a gabled frame with a large gabled frame vent covering the roof ridge.

The Boiler House contained a coal bunker fed from an underground dump just outside the Boiler House. The coal was hand stoked into the two side-by-side Babcock and Wilcox water tube boilers. Each exhausts into one of the twin stacks that rise above the complex. The two boilers provided the power, either directly or indirectly, for every machine in the shops. During the excursion era, one of the guy wires supporting the twin stacks failed and when replacements were installed, the stacks were repainted from all black to silver with black tops. This occured sometime between 1965 and 1972.

Today the Boiler Shop is one of the more endangered buildings in the complex. A massive beam that supports the roofline between the Boiler house and Machine Shop has rotted away. To keep the roof up, massive cribbing has been erected to support the roof above the beam. The roof in this area is also in poor shape.

On the EBT Most Endangered List

HAER info at the Library of Congess site> (With Machine Shop info)

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