Sitting at Ligonier Construction in Laughlintown is a century-old caboose with a new coat of "Safety Red" paint.
Preserved under that glowing surface is a layer of rust-colored "Tuscan Red" -- the Pennsylvania Railroad's official train color, a symbol of the past.
"The Pennsylvania Railroad doesn't regularly use that color (Tuscan Red) anymore," said John Costello, 86, who lives in Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County, with his wife, Lois, 77.
Last fall, the Costello family donated the rare caboose -- a double-axle, four-wheeled type -- to Ligonier Valley Rail Road Association for eventual placement near the Darlington Station. The station, along Idlewild Hill Road just off Route 30 in Ligonier Township, is being restored.
In 1963, Costello acquired the 28,000-pound wood-framed car, which was built on April 4, 1905, at the Juniata Locomotive Shops. The car was sold to the Monongahela Railroad in 1919.
When train manufacturers increasingly turned to steel in the 1950s, the wooden versions were being destroyed in mass numbers by the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Costello -- who at the time owned Costello Construction Co. -- arranged to haul the caboose from a Uniontown rail yard where his brother, Miles, was a railroad policeman, to his family's home in Summerhill, Cambria County.
"We loaded it up and brought it home," Costello said.
Costello and his crew leveled a slope on his property, laid rails and 16 rail ties on about 20 tons of ballast base, and made a home for the 39-foot caboose for the next four decades.
The Costello children -- John Jr., 48; Susan Lorditch, 47; Margaret Plank, 46; and Amy Suhr, 44 -- spent endless hours playing in the caboose along with neighborhood kids.
"We played in it, slept in it, climbed over every last inch of that sucker," said John Jr., who today is a cardiologist living in Upper St. Clair.
As the Costellos' children and their 10 grandchildren eventually outgrew the caboose as a playhouse, it was left to John Costello to keep up with its maintenance.
With the Costellos preparing to sell the home and move into a personal care facility this fall, John Jr. and a friend, the Rev. Richard Flock, contacted the Ligonier association to offer the relic of the state's railroad past.
Association President Bill McCullough and other association officials moved the caboose just before Christmas.
"We're so happy it has gone someplace where it will be preserved and cared for," John Jr. said.
Ligonier Construction will soon transport the caboose to the half-acre property of the Darlington Station for placement on rails.
Last fall, the association completed a $340,000 exterior restoration of the station.
The caboose's interior will be refurbished, and it will be equipped with a handicapped-accessible entrance. The car will be used as an attraction for children visiting the Darlington Station site with their families, McCullough said.
"We'll probably paint the number 'LGV 57' on it," said McCullough, noting that "57" was painted on the last caboose used by the Ligonier Valley Railroad when it went out of business in 1952. "It will be nice to have something for the children to experience."
John Costello agrees.
"You have to have something that interests the kids or the parents won't show up, so I think they're very wise," Costello said.
In exchange for donating the car, the association plans to adorn it with a plaque that states: "Contributed by The Costello Family of Summerhill."
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