(The following story by Greg Jordan appeared on the Bluefield Daily Telegraph website on October 8, 2010.)
PRINCETON, N.J. – A reminder of railroads’ past is in the finishing touches of a restoration effort that brings a new viewing experience at the Princeton Railroad Museum.
The old railroad caboose once rested next to the Princeton Municipal Building, but now it has a new home at the Mercer Street railroad museum and new life as an exhibit. Once a unit used by the Virginian Railroad, Norfolk Southern Railroad donated the caboose to the city of Princeton in 1991 and later donated the oversized railroad ties and rails it now rests upon at the museum. A more than $78,000 Transportation Enhancement Grant funded most of the project, and a city matching grant paid for the rest of the $99,000 effort.
Much of the work involved cleaning the caboose and replacing parts, said architect Todd Boggess, who has managed the project for the city.
“Well, we did some interior floor replacement. A portion of the wooden floor had rotted,” he said. Research was done to make sure the new flooring would be authentic.
Broken windows were replaced and a new roof coating was applied. Much of the caboose has been repainted and rusted sections have been repaired or replaced. Some of the last painting involves giving the caboose the same type of letters and numbers it wore when it was a functioning piece of the railroad.
A railroad historian from Virginia, Ken Miller, is scheduled to start painting the caboose’s new lettering this weekend to help ensure authenticity. Boggess said Miller made a surprising discovery while he was researching the caboose; Princeton’s railroad museum, which was once a train station, has a mirror twin. A station in Victoria, Va. was built using the same plans as the one in Princeton, but it’s a mirror of the design, Boggess said.
“It’s really close to getting ready to be opened up,” he said.
Having the caboose will add to the museum’s exhibits and appeal, said Connie Shumate, the museum’s director.
“It’s going to be more attraction, more appeal, to the museum,” she said. “And it will make for a more interesting tour.”
Besides inspecting the restored exterior, visitors will be able to explore the interior.
“They can go inside it. We’ve tossed around several ideas about what we’ll do with the interior, but nothing’s been decided yet,” Shumate said.
Shumate said she hoped to see the caboose open within a month.