At the same time, though, all but two pieces of the rolling stock are likely to be moved - to another historic station in Mount Holly, which would also open as a museum.
The transfer of cars is to be completed by the spring, under a tentative agreement between Pemberton Township and the nonprofit operating the Pemberton station.
They would be lifted by crane onto flatbed trailers at a cost of about $80,000, then trucked to the former Mount Holly station, said Michael Tamn, president of the Pemberton Township Historic Trust, which runs the Pemberton site and plans to open the new location.
"The township thinks we can do this overnight, but the logistics of this are horrendous," Tamn said. "The ground is soft right now, and that makes it difficult to bring in heavy equipment. We'll work as fast as we can."
The move would open the way for a land-swap agreement, originally proposed in 2009, between the township and Burlington County.
The agreement calls for the township to give the 15.5-acre station and adjacent trail property to the county in exchange for 11.1 acres of county-owned land next to Pemberton's municipal complex on Browns Mills-Pemberton Road.
The swap was delayed by a dispute between the town and the nonprofit over the arrival of a locomotive from the old John A. Roebling Co. steel mill in Florence.
The township said the trust violated the terms of its license to operate the Pemberton station by bringing in the locomotive. As a result, it closed the site to the volunteer trust members in June.
The volunteers said the township was concerned about liability issues though it didn't take any action after the acquisition and storage of the other cars over the last several years.
"The license agreement didn't authorize placement of railcars on the property," said the town's solicitor, Andrew Bayer.
