The Man Behind The Curtain

So who am I?  To begin with my name is Christopher Brimley, I am 28, married and I have three girls that never stop entertaining me and bringing joy into my life.  We currently reside in Utah and are about 45 minutes south of Salt Lake City.  I found myself being sucked into the world of retail and was not happy where it was taking me, and so I decided to go back to school and pursue a degree in Industrial Design but I am good friends of a professor in the advertising department and is successfully wooing me away. So as of right now I am only working part time but I am a full time student as well and trying to take care of my family and squeeze as much work on my buildings as I can.  Its a little overwhelming at times, but I am surviving.  

So why trains?  It all started with Lego's, I would spend weeks building cities and then tear them down and build another one.  When I was about 13 my dad and I were on a fishing trip together, and at the lake we were fishing at had a spur that lead to a coal flood loader.  Twice a day a Southern Pacific empty unit coal train would pull in and load up.  It would be in the middle of the night and I would hear another train roaring up and I would jump out of the tent to watch it go by on the other side of the lake.  It was absolutely fascinating to me.  

So like most I started out in HO-scale, my first locomotive was a Denver & Rio Grande Western GP40-2.  I had a 4x8 sheet of plywood that I had set up to run it on, but then I quickly realized I could do twice as much in the same space.  I sold off my HO stuff and began on a small 2x8' layout in N-scale that I had in my bedroom, everything was modern and it was terrible.  Then in about 1998 I sort of gave up, I dabbled now and then but I didn't really start back up until a few years ago when I was bored and I designed the Steven's Hotel and then built it a few months later.

Most people assume that because I am a younger modeler that I do modern, and they are surprised when I tell them that I am doing transition era, and then they are confused when I tell them I am modeling the New York Central.  So why would I, a guy from the west be modeling the East in a era that I never knew.  Well there are a few reasons, first my wife being ignorant to what I liked (DRGW) bought me a framed print of a painting that had a pair of Hudson's and a E or F-unit at LaSalle St. Station in Chicago with the imposing Board of Trade building looming in the distance.  I accepted the gift and hung it up, but then I found myself constantly looking at it in a daze.  I also liked the idea of modeling something that is totally foreign me, where I had to research everything and the increased challenge              intrigued me.  

So that is the short version about me, and I am having a great time getting to meet so many great people from around the world.

Thank You,

Christopher Brimley