Re: NNG, L-131 model that was at Royal Gorge????

In the early 1980's, I lived in Longmont, not far from Ralph's little kingdom in northwest Boulder.. I spent several several fascinating hours wandering around his place, marvelling at his ingenuity and determination, and at the sheer volume and variety of parts and pieces waiting to be repurposed in some future projects.. Ralph was not a machinist by trade, but had worked for the highway department. He wasn't a big talker, but he did invite me and my three young kids to wander about and ride in open gondolas behind a replica of an early Alco RS unit that he had created. We saw the articulated sitting in his roundhouse, but I never saw it run. It was huge!

I don't know how and when he acquired his skills, but he was the consummate tinkerer and had a keen eye for reusable materials and brought together several truly unique, if not true-to-scale machines. One creation that truly inpresssed me was a Shay, powered by a 2-cylinder engine from an early steam-powered automobile (Locomobile?). The steam dome cover was an old aluminum cake-cover, and bits of trim from God-knows-where gave the finished creation a real steampunk aura. He also had a donkey engine which powered a small sawmill, and when it was in operation, you would hear the steam whistle from all around the neighborhood.

It was a real loss when he passed away, and there was some speculation arose that the City of Boulder would acquire his collection and build a track on an old grade which ran along the foothills toward Lefthand Canyon, but nothing ever came of that. About that time, I moved to the Western Slope, and when I returned for a visit a few years later, everything was gone and it was hard to tell that he had even been there.

Ed Frey
Loveland, CO