Locomotive explosion

[Twig57]

Dug an old railroad site were a steam engine was said to have exploded. Found lots of spikes , random iron, track connectors, etc. I don't know much about railroad history but this was a hunt put together by a metal detecting club i belong to and it was a fun day( weather getting better in the high plains . As we were getting ready to leave I hit a pretty big iron target and decided to dig one more hole. This piece is thick at the top and tapers down on the bottom. It is concave and has the # 20 on it. I'm guessing it might be part of a boiler? When I got home I went to a local park that has an old steam engine on display to see if I could ID This iron. I couldn't see anything that looked the same on the engine but this display features an iron fence made by an old railroader that welded parts , pieces, and tools together that he had found over the years walking the rails into a fence around his yard and was dedicated to this engine/display that he worked on. As I was walking around the outer fence (his folk art fence is protected) I saw the exact piece of iron i found today only painted black and not fractured, the last pic is of that. Thanks for reading this long story and I hope some of you railroad experts can tell me what this is.

 

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[Twig57]

The last pic is the back concave side. Can't get inside of the fence

 

[jeff of pa]

I can't help ya , But interesting find

 

[BosnMate]

The piece in the fence with the square hole looks like a plowshare, while I would expect yours is a part of the boiler from the steam engine explosion.

 

[Twig57]

Thank you BosnMate I agree It does look like a plowshare. I can only get within about 5 feet of the black object and only see that side of it because of the barrier fence, but these two pieces are identical except mine is broken. If you look just to the left of the 20 in my first pic you can see half of the square hole. If I were to flip that piece over top from bottom and tilt it to the left a bit it matches the black object. Thanks again for comments, this an awesome forum !

 

[Twig57]

p.s. I have a train expert looking at it tomorrow and will post if this gets solved.

 

[Broken knee]

The piece in the fence with the square hole looks like a plowshare, while I would expect yours is a part of the boiler from the steam engine explosion.

I agree here are 2 pic's. HH BK

 

[Twig57]

Plowshare for sure. Just have to figure out how to mark this as "solved" on my iphone