NISSWA — Gather a group with random skills and knowledge and the results can be amazing.

Such is the case with the recent restoration of the downtown Nisswa caboose .

The exterior restoration was completed this summer, and the previously dark green caboose with white Burlington Northern lettering is now back to its original vermilion red with a Great Northern Railway logo and prominent X27, the caboose's series number.

"Our intention wasn't restoration, but restoration is what we have," said Cindy Terwilliger, president of the Nisswa Area Historical Society, which spearheaded the project.

That's thanks in part to chance encounters with Andrew Rugloski, a Lake Shore railroad buff, and Keith Diederichs, a Nisswa man whose career was in masonry restoration.

Those men — along with othe

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