In January 2020, a coronavirus spread from China to the United States and by mid-March across the world. Named COVID-19, it was considered so deadly that many businesses were temporarily closed, most governors issued stay-at-home orders for non-essential workers, and schools closed as learning moved online, while the economy sharply declined. To help businesses avoid permanent closure, the federal government created the Payroll Protection Program, which provided money to keep employees on payroll even when there was no work, and many Rolla businesses obtained these grants through the efforts of local bankers. After city officials and three grant-funded local businesses discussed a collaborative project, their employees used the eight weeks of wages provided by the grant to restore the train at Schuman Park. It had been 25 years since the train's exterior had been painted, and the passenger car interior had not been worked on for 65 years. The restoration took more than 2,500 man-hours, about half spent on the passenger car, whose east wall and part of the roof were so deteriorated that the roof was caving in and whose floor was weak enough in places for a worker to fall through. Seat covers had rotted, though the 130-year-old hog hair cushions remained usable, and all windows and curtains had to be replaced, while the spring-loaded brass window catches and curtain restraints still worked after cleaning. The work was presented as a testament to the skill of workers from an earlier era before computers and mass production. The most difficult part of the passenger car restoration was recreating the etched glass clerestory windows that had been removed in the early 1900s, with only one vent window surviving in the car, but the group had enough skill and determination to return the passenger car to the appearance it had when in daily service more than 100 years earlier.