I.M. Wolfgang Richter - Part 2

This continues (a series of) an article/interview that was first printed in the  German magazine  "GARTENBAHN profi" , issue 1/2009, pages 12 through 18. You can also go to www.gartenbahnprofi.de and download this article then utilizing a translator from your Google or Internet explorer service. In remembering Wolfgang Richter, the co-founder of LGB (Lehmann Gartenbahn) who passed away in November 2012 at the age of  84, this German article was published again by GARTENBAHN profi as a download. Italic text in parentheses is background information about related topics in the article.

• GBP: I know from earlier publishing that the founding activities for LGB had already started by 1964. So they took a 4 year time span until eventually made a presentation; which might explain that everything seemed to be perfect from the beginning. We ourselves depicted that a multitude of models was presented from the start; even if  quite a few were based on standardized components. You did talk to Wolfgang Richter quite often about the beginnings. How did they react to the huge success?
• H.Jürgen Neumann: Wolfgang Richter and his brother Eberhard made a good team, for starters. Eberhard being the technician, Wolfgang the businessman. Whereupon authorities were overlapping important decisions were made jointly.   You also know that family run businesses are often more successful compared to achieving things with non-family staff. You just share the same interests and there's no time checking at 5 p.m. But you need capital for your projects. And you always have another partner on board when you loan money from a bank. And when they say that the banks dispense parasols when the sun is shining but collect (repossess) them when it's raining - there is some truth to that. So it wasn't always that easy to translate that big success  LGB had in the beginning into space and machine park(s) and financial matters.   When it comes to how to deal with success personally, Wolfgang Richter should be our role model. He always kept his feet firmly on the ground, he was always friendly, sometimes he was too humble. He never liked this celebrity buzz but always viewed himself as a model train enthusiast and LGB fan.
• GBP: But still he was always the center of activity wherever he went. His presence made him into kind of the Überfather for the LGB family. It almost seems as if the Great Harmony was at home here. Though there were very big problems due to the early passing of Eberhard Richter in 1984 - he was 53 years old back then- as well as 3 years earlier the big almost deadly health scare which he had to overcome.
• H.Jürgen Neumann: Yes, you're right. The first 20 years must have been a wonderful time; but you know as well that some things rosy up in hindsight. It was a lot of work I think. It wasn't in-vain that their workday started at 6:30 a.m. But a model-train wasn't just another article needing to be manufactured (for the Richters) For them a 'piece'of their heart and soul always became part of the game. And that was what the LGB fan could sense. There was just this spark that seemed to arced to the LGB family. Lehmann were the first that presented a big train in times when toy trains became smaller and smaller. And you know:" there is...' enchantment inherent in every new beginning' to quote Hermann Hesse" And the enchantment of LGB was very intense back then.   In any case Wolfgang Richter was the patriarch of the family which became most obvious at the American LGB Club convention in San Diego which he attended and at night at dinner in this humongous gala pavilion people besieged him just to have their photograph taken with him in the center. +++++ stop on page 14+++to be continued++++