CENTRE HALL — A Beech Creek resident, and train enthusiast, is set to help rescue/relocate and restore an old wooden “cabin car” caboose.

John Gummo and Luther Gette, of Philipsburg, shook hands recently and formed an alliance to rescue New York Central Caboose 17909.

“Their intention is to see the ‘hack’ visualized in a historic setting. They are currently working through the logistics of complete exterior restoration,” a release from the pair said. “Followed by another over-the-road transport to a historical society location existing with an existing New York Central (NYC) rail station from the 1890s.”

The train is currently in Centre Hall and will be moved to Beech Creek at a restoration center on Sept. 19.

The old wooden caboose, built around 1900, was in operation until the 1960s on the New York Central’s Pennsylvania Division, a conduit for NYC locomotive coal, both north and west from the Clearfield Bituminous Region of Central Pennsylvania during the glory days of steam power.

The wood cabooses, with their classic cupolas, were gradually replaced by all-metal vehicles with bay windows, but quite a few survived in branch line service up to the time of the Penn Central merger in 1968. After which, most were ruthlessly scrapped by the railroad, leaving only a few rare survivors today.

“I kept track of the caboose for many years, because to me it’s an absolute classic of the era of steam railroading. I’ve been riding freight trains for a long time and I had one of the greatest freight rides of my entire life in a caboose just like this on the old Clearfield Southern line of the NYC in October 1961,” Gette said. “This was courtesy of an old friend, engineer Gus Pelka of Philipsburg, who was the total hero of my life when I was a kid.”

“The crew let me sit up in the cupola for the entire ride from Irvona back to Clearfield, on a chilly fall evening, with heat from the old potbelly stove drifting up to keep me warm. Doing only about ten miles per hour, on very rickety track, we bounced and swayed along Clearfield Creek, following every curve and bend of the old line, soon to be abandoned,” Gette concluded.

Gummo has a long history with the Centre Hall caboose. He discovered it around 1985 on a siding near Cammal on the NYC line through Pine Creek Gorge, where it had been thoughtfully sequestered in the weeds by an old NYC section foreman, and thus escaped the scrapper’s torch.