ENTERPRISE - The Hamlet of Enterprise has donated an old train caboose to a museum in Hay River, completing a roundtrip between the two communities that began in the 1980s.

An old caboose in Enterprise is loaded onto a transport truck on Oct. 16 for a move to Hay River. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

The caboose was carried to Hay River by transport truck on Oct. 16.

It will be displayed at the Hay River Heritage Centre.

Peter Osted, co-chair of the Hay River Museum Society, said the caboose is a nice addition to the centre.

"It was fantastic to see it put in place," he said.

Osted said the largely wooden caboose will be restored, adding the roof is pretty well rotted through.

Funding and volunteers will have to be found for the work, he said. "Hopefully someone will step up."

Osted said the caboose, which is of undetermined age, was originally donated to Hay River by Canadian National Railway in the early 1970s.

It was used as a tourism information booth in a small park on the banks of the Hay River. In fact, the park is still referred to as "the caboose" by many community residents.

Eventually, the caboose was abandoned as a tourism information booth, and Enterprise obtained it.

Osted said it was a landmark in Hay River and many people were upset when it was trucked to Enterprise.

The Oct. 19 return trip to Hay River was undertaken by Carter Industries and cost the Hamlet of Enterprise about $5,000.

"We were going to remove it to the dump," said Enterprise Mayor Allan Flamand. "We didn't feel we wanted to spend the money to restore it."

Flamand said the Hay River Museum Society expressed interest in the caboose.

It was also sitting on land where the hamlet plans to build a community centre once funding is obtained.

Flamand said some people in Enterprise were sorry to see the caboose leave.

"At the end of the day it will serve a better purpose at the Hay River museum than it would here," he said, noting Enterprise does not have a museum.

"I don't see it as a loss to Enterprise at all," he said adding the relocation also removed a safety hazard because young people sometimes climbed onto the caboose.

Back in the 1980s, Enterprise obtained the caboose with the idea of using it as part of an historical display, but that didn't happened.

Former mayor Winnie Cadieux said the caboose was never used for anything.

"It wasn't a priority," she said. "We just weren't able to get the funding together."

Cadieux said she is happy the caboose will be put to good use in Hay River.

However, she said it would have been nice to make some use of it in Enterprise.