Photos by MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

A part of Milton "Doc" Brockmeyer's scale model of Pulaski features Washington Avenue.

Milton Brockmeyer looks over his scale model of downtown Pulaski. In the foreground is a model of the old Dalton Theater.

PULASKI -- It used to be that people here would talk almost wistfully about Milton "Doc" Brockmeyer's basement train set.

You've got to see it to believe it, they would say. Almost in the same breath one could sense a skepticism that the 93-year-old former dentist's 40-year effort to build a 2,800-square-foot scale model of 1930s Pulaski would survive him.

But this week, as Brockmeyer walked into his world of carefully crafted buildings and train cars, there seemed to be a newfound sense of relief. The Pulaski Town Council voted Tuesday to fast-track a plan to build an extension to the town museum large enough to house and preserve Brockmeyer's life's work.

"I thought it wasn't going to happen a number of times," Brockmeyer said. "The thing that made us worried was when we got a letter from the government" that said a Virginia Department of Transportation grant the town obtained to build a transportation museum was about to run out.

Politicians, residents and leaders of a nonprofit have wrestled for almost a decade with how to move forward on plans to use the $664,000 grant. They even spent about $350,000 in VDOT funds and state earmarks on designs for a $6 million project that would have housed a museum and a fine arts center.

During those years, things changed. The local economy went sour as factories shuttered, and the town's decision to sell the property slated for the museum put the once-ambitious project out of reach.

Even as late as 2006, the town tried to reach a consensus on a museum proposal, but Town Manager John Hawley said that effort failed like the ones before it.

So the council's unanimous decision -- reached after a little more than an hour of debate -- seemed to surprise even Hawley, who is now scrambling to meet a looming deadline to respond to VDOT's letter and preserve the $508,000 still available.

Big questions still linger, however, such as how the town will come up with about $100,000 in required matching funds and how it could sustain a museum in the long term.

Raising some of those questions is Judy Ison, director of the Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley in Pulaski. Ison requested that the council consider locating the museum in the fine arts center's recently acquired building downtown.

"A concern I have is that we want anything done in the town of Pulaski to be done in a very professional way," Ison said. "I truly believe the museum needs staff that is employed to take care of the museum."

Councilman Joel Burchett echoed Ison's concerns, saying he was open to the idea of combining the transportation museum with the fine arts center because it would give the museum full-time staffing.

For now, the museum, housed in the old depot on Washington Avenue, is run by Betty Kirkner, who is in her 70s and can commit to keeping the doors open only three days a week.

But Kirkner, who is also chairwoman of the town's museum committee, is opposed to putting the museum under the fine arts center's roof, saying they had explored that idea but were not able to agree on a shared vision for the project. She acknowledges that the 10,000-square-foot extension would need full-time staffing, but said she thinks it could be done with mostly volunteers and through admission fees.

Even so, unlike the nonprofit fine arts center, the town owns the museum, and Hawley said the town will likely have to "bear some of the operating costs." But he said officials would try to minimize the cost to taxpayers.

From the council's perspective, preserving a piece of history such as Brockmeyer's train set is worth spending some extra money.

"It's imperative that we maintain this heritage," Councilman Dave Clark said.

Brockmeyer spent nearly 40 years building the model, and "one way or another we need to save it. We have to do it in any fashion we can," he added.

While Mayor Jeff Worrell acknowledged the town was indebted to the fine arts center for obtaining the grant and pledged future support, the council's action Tuesday directed staff to move forward on a proposal that was developed by Ty Kirkner, who is Betty Kirkner's son.

Several council members said developing a proposal that included the fine arts center would raise too many logistical questions to parse through in time to meet VDOT's 45-day deadline for a town response.

The proposal includes a prefabricated structure he estimated would cost about $567,000 to build and will house both Brockmeyer's train set, a restored vintage fire truck and a hearse a resident donated to the town.

Ty Kirkner added that he has plans to build a 6-foot-wide door in Brockmeyer's basement that will allow safe relocation of the model, saying, "It's just a real fun project in many ways for me."

"Very seldom do you get a chance to preserve something so interesting and magnificent," Ty Kirkner said. "It's absolutely phenomenal. ... I'm very excited and very proud of the town council for committing to do it."