TUSCUMBIA, Ala. (AP) — The Tennessee Valley Authority has donated a rail car to the fleet that adorns the grounds and roundhouse of the Tuscumbia Railway Depot Museum.

Museum officials had gone to the TVA’s Colbert Fossil Plant three years ago to check out an antique locomotive. On that trip, Parks and Recreation Director Joel Kendrick spotted a flatbed car in a field on the TVA property, The TimesDaily reported.

Kendrick asked whether they could have that car also.

“It was out in the woods on a track and the track wasn’t even connected to anything,” Kendrick said. “I told them if there’s any way we can get that, we’d like to have it, too. They said they didn’t mind.”

Earlier this year, the TVA closed the steam plant and donated the flatbed car to the museum.

“We got together and with the plant’s closing, they really wanted to get it in here where it could be on display,” Kendrick said.

It arrived last week, after TVA workers gave the railcar a face-lift. TVA workers used a crane to rest it atop a set of tracks in the depot rail yard, accompanied by other train cars.

“It took a while to get it done but it looks really great,” Kendrick said.

He said the TVA went above and beyond in doing so.

“TVA got it out of the woods and it wasn’t an easy task,” he said. “It had trees growing all against it and on top of it. They had to cut a path in there and lift it out with a crane. They sandblasted it, painted it, re-lettered it, put new decking on it and brought it out here.

“It’s a really neat piece to add to our inventory.”

The TVA and depot officials are researching information on the flatcar. Kendrick said TVA workers told him when they re-decked it, that was the first time new decking had been placed on the car since 1953, so it had been at the steam plant at least that long.

“One of the wheels has 1944 on it, from when the wheel was replaced,” he said. “We’re going to try to find the history of it. I’m thinking they used it to actually build the plant.”