Klaus Travels With Guenter Ruhland

Klaus worked with Guenter Ruhland sometimes just as close as he did with Wofgang Richter and Klaus Baumann. Guenter, the Head Mold Master was as essential to the continued successes of LGB as Wolfgang Richter and Klaus Baumann were. Wolfgang had the general idea, Klaus Baumann knew how to sell it or generate demand and Guenter Ruhland was the one to get it ready for production, making the molds and figuring out the "fine print" for manufacturing Wolfgang's ideas. And (Famous) Klaus was at Guenter and Wolfgang's side when technical problems popped up that required expert knowledge, sophisticated solutions and specialized implementation.

Having fun with Guenter solving LGB technical problems it came as second nature to Klaus to have fun  off-time as well. Klaus was a big fan of visiting museum rail roads and as soon as he knew his flight schedule he'd start searching for museum railroads in proximity to the destination airport. When San Francisco appeared in his schedule in the early summer of 1995 he  knew where to go :

The Dixiana Shay, built 1912 at Roaring Camp

The Tuolumne Heisler at Roaring Camp, built in 1899

The Roaring Camp Rail Road in Felton, CA. Located just 2 hours south of San Francisco it is nestled in between red wood forest. The RR is a narrow gauge railroad featuring at least 4 running museum locos, among them 3 Shays and a Heisler. Please visit their website at Roaring Camp RR

Klaus took Guenter in his cockpit (yes, it was before 9/11) and off they flew to San Fransisco. The spend the arrival night in San Francisco and then traveled by car to Felton the next morning. They boarded the train pulled by the Heisler locomotive for the 3.25 mile long track.

In 1995 the Heisler was the only loco to run on that track. Afterwards they trudged through the rail yard enjoying the other museum locos: The Sonora Shay built in 1911 and the rarely used loco  Kahuku, built around 1890 and bought in 1966 from another museum.

The Sonora Shay, built in 1911

They drove back to San Francisco and later had dinner at the still existing Cliff House, a famous San

Fran institution in its own right.



The next day they took a boat to Alcatraz. They were in for a big surprise: the movie "The Rock" was being filmed on Alcatraz, starring Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage. To quote Wikipedia:"Most of the film was shot on location in the Alcatraz Prison on Alcatraz Island. As a national park, it wasn’t possible to close Alcatraz down, and much of the filming had to accommodate tour parties milling around.[9]". Klaus still quips:" Yeah and when we were there, we just saw equipment around us everywhere and cables but no actors and no action..!"

Courtesy of sftravels San Francisco

They flew back to Frankfurt the following day.