The Franz Josef soon is planned to undergo a extensive full rebuild. The work would probably involve more of the rebuilding of the parts behind the scenes and not altering the visual (other than perhaps getting the visual to work better). Right now, the reason the machine is not playing is because there is only one roll left and that roll is needing to be scanned by the restorer to have it run on MIDI upon completion of the future rebuild (at this time, there is no set estimated completion date but because of the complexity of what must be done to get it playing fully, it could take time once the project begins). This proposed project is believed to be similar in nature of full rebuild of the Gladiator Calliope in 2009 (which also runs on MIDI). It will be interesting to see the end results of this project due to this machine involving multiple parts (organ pipes, synthesizer, etc) and all will need to be rebuilt/upgraded.
