The end is in sight for a new welcome center in Lehighton.

After being refurbished, a caboose will greet visitors in about two years. The process took another step toward completion on Tuesday. A small convoy left Jim Thorpe around 7 a.m. to take the caboose to Lehighton.

One truck had the caboose, a second truck had the trucks or wheels. Jim Thorpe police and several other vehicles escorted them to Perch’s at the top of the mountain where Lehighton police took over.

The caboose was taken to the Trail Head across from the pavilion along Sgt. Stanley Hoffman Boulevard in Lehighton.

“This was started about two years ago,” said Al Sellers.

Sellers and Kathy Henderson from Carbon Chamber and Economic Development were instrumental in making the project possible.

Thanks to two anonymous donors, the Chamber raised money to buy the caboose from Reading and Northern Railroad and to pay to have it moved.

The caboose, No. 95023, was built by Reading Railroad and was in service with the Lehigh Valley Railroad for many years. It sat with a line of cabooses in the Mauch Chunk train station rail yard for several years until they were moved to make way for the AJ Baddick Memorial Bridge, which opened in 2016.

“We gauged the rail in Lehighton, spiked it onto the ties,” Sellers said. “The borough put in the ballast. We know it’s gauged properly and level. It will need about two years of hard work to refurbish it.”

The railroad is working with the Chamber to consult on historic colors and paint to make it historically accurate.

“We are thrilled to have it,” Henderson said.

The caboose, once it is renovated, will be a new landmark.