The folks at KTUL-TV in Tulsa caught up with the people behind the Route 66 Village in southwest Tulsa to get an update.
In short, many changes are in store at the outdoors transportation museum. Right now, a Route 66 visitors center, made to look like a gas station, is being constructed next to the Frisco Meteor 4500 steam train.
Here’s the video:
Here are the important excerpts from the report:
“Of course the gas station is already underway. We’re going to renovate each one of the cars and the cab of the locomotive. We plan to have a replica of the very first airport hanger in Tulsa. We’re going to build another gas station that will take in the 1940s to 1960s era,” said Massey.
Those are just some plans. Starting in 2019, work will begin on a 5000 square foot train station with a canopy to act as an event space. They even want to hook up a smoke machine and wire up the whistle to work and make the Frisco Meteor look like it’s ready to steam away.
Route 66 Village organizers are hoping everything gets done by sometime in 2020.
The visitors center is covered by Vision 2025 tax money, but the rest will have to be covered by fundraising.
For the latter, the Route 66 Village has established an Amazon Smile account and a GoFundMe online campaign. The Route 66 Village’s Facebook page also contains a “Donate” button if you want to help the cause.
In addition to the steam locomotive, Route 66 Village contains several railroad cars and the Red Fork Centennial Oil Derrick, a 154-foot-tall structure that’s a replica of an oil derrick that once stood in the neighborhood during Tulsa’s oil-boom days of the 1920s and ’30s.
Volunteers moved the historic Frisco Meteor train to the Route 66 Village in 2011 after years of restoration work. Here’s a video I produced of the big day of moving the behemoth into place for the last time:
(Image of the Route 66 Village logo via Facebook)