After several weather delays, volunteers with the Museum of the North Beach had the perfect day for painting the Museum’s historic 1912 Northern Pacific Railway caboose, on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024.

Eight volunteers including six employees from the Aberdeen and Hoquiam branches of the Bank of the Pacific volunteered their painting skills. Lunch was provided by Frontager’s Pizza in Seabrook.

Fifteen years ago, the Museum of the North Beach rescued the historic 1912 wooden Northern Pacific Railway caboose. Officials moved it to a new home at the site of the new Museum of the North Beach in Moclips.

The caboose had been used as a nightly rental in Moclips, and a new owner wanted it removed from their property. In 2009, museum members collected funds to have it moved seven blocks to the Washington State Parks day use park in Moclips, the original site of the Northern Pacific Railway depot.

Museum curator Kelly Calhoun said this particular piece of railroad history is important to Moclips by the Sea Historical Society as it was on the last train to Moclips before the tracks were torn up in the 1980s by the Burlington Northern. They moved it again in 2019, along state Route 109, 1½ miles to its present site.