Progress Slow, But Moving at Frisco RR Museum

After a wet spring slowed progress, rolling stock is arriving

The Museum of the American Railroad is making quite an entrance into its new location in Frisco.

“We get calls all the time, people wondering when the trains are going to be there and when they can come see the trains,” said Marla Roe, executive director of the Frisco Convention and Visitors Bureau.

In late August, the first rolling stock arrived at the site near Cotton Gin Road.

“This is a regular busy main line for the BNSF, so they have to schedule these moves around the freight operations,” said BNSF contracted photographer Ken Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald and other railroad enthusiasts, like Joe Chapman of Flower Mound, have flocked to the site to see the progress.

Chapman said he has been checking Facebook every day, with the hope of answering his burning question: “What pieces are rolling and when?” he asked.

Museum officials have said a wet Spring slowed up the completion of the railroad track loop around the site.

Now that it’s completed, they can coordinate moving the heavier stock -- although it’s another challenge to prepare century-old locomotives to move for the first time in decades.

 “We’ve learned to be patient,” said Frisco deputy city manager Henry Hill.

The museum is not releasing exact dates of when other rolling stock may move up the rail lines through Irving.

Much of that coordination depends on scheduling with the BNSF.

The museum had scheduled a “soft” opening for late this year, but there is no word on when or if that window of time is still feasible.

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