BELHAVEN — Belhaven residents gathered Saturday afternoon for the town’s celebration of National Train Day, and were treated to a firsthand look at local history.

As the main event of the day, a restoration committee unveiled the progress made on restoring the Southern Railways Caboose X682, located along Main Street across from the Wilkinson Center.

The committee includes Don Stark, Julian Goff and chairman Stanley Lamkins, and Les Porter, of Belhaven Waterway Marina, is handling the restoration. The group is coordinating a three-phase restoration of the caboose.

“We started about a year ago in the discussion of what to do and how to do it,” committee member Don Stark said. “The work began in earnest last fall after the heat was off from summer.”

The 40-foot-long Southern Railways caboose is undergoing phase 2 at this point, which includes creating a historical museum setup for the site. Saturday’s guests were able to tour the caboose, as well as view donated artifacts, but there is more work to be done, Stark said.

The caboose has a relatively new coat of bright red paint, and repairs were made to its steel structure, according to Stark, but Porter also plans to restore the wood floors and roof.

Stark said restoration crews have kept the essence of the circa-1950s caboose, leaving the setup as it was decades ago — a compact, self-contained house on wheels.

“Inside it’s almost exactly right, as far as all the details of a caboose at that time,” he said.

Norfolk and Southern Railroad Company dates back to the 1890s, including a railroad running through Pantego and Belhaven. It merged into the Southern Railway System in 1974.

Railroads were a large part of Belhaven’s economic history and development, and the goal of the restoration committee is to commemorate the role of the railroad in Belhaven, according to Stark.

The committee is relying on support and funding from nonprofit initiatives, such as Belhaven’s Small Town Main Street project and Belhaven Renaissance, as well as donations, to make that happen. The project moves forward as funding is available.

Stark said residents gave good feedback at Saturday’s celebration. Event speakers Virgil Holman, general manager at Coastal Carolina Railway, and Larry Jones, regional director of the Norfolk Southern Historical Society, also gave positive feedback.

Stark said they hope to make the caboose location into a park area one day, as well.

“We have some thoughts about what the next stages are,” he said. “It was a big part of the founding of Belhaven. That’s why we wanted to celebrate that.”