“Set Up Running” Meet the team behind Brick Model Railroader

Cale Leiphart – BMR Creator, Model Team

Cale Leiphart received his first LEGO® train set, 7722 Steam Cargo Train, one Christmas at the age of 8. And thus began his slow downward spiral into the dark world of LEGO@ trains. Interrupted by a brief period in the early 2000s that he calls “My castle phase”, Cale turned his complete energy back to trains in 2006 when his newly formed club, PennLUG, participated in the NMRA National Train Show that year in Philadelphia.

Cale has become an accomplished builder in the LEGO® train community, winning many awards and giving presentations at fan conventions, writing articles on trains for various LEGO® fan magazines, and leading PennLUG in developing one of the premier club train layouts in North America. His favorite subject to model is steam era railroads from his home state of Pennsylvania.

Cale is a true rail fan who loves railroad history. When not building LEGO® models he can be found collecting books on railroads, visiting train museums, researching railroad history, and riding trains. We’re pretty sure its a sickness.

You can find Cale’s LEGO® models on his Flickr Gallery

Glenn Holland – Former Team Member

Glenn has been a life-long fan of both trains and LEGO. His first set was the 4561 Railway Express, which he received for Christmas in the early 2000’s. He has been collecting sets and building MOCs ever since. Glenn started his current layout in 2006 when he bought the 7897-1 Passenger Train, and it has progressed into an entire corner of his basement. He plans to build a new layout from scratch sometime in the future.

In 2014, Glenn joined PennLUG’s train layout at Philly Brickfest where he unveiled his Pennsylvania Railroad Streamlined K4s locomotive. He has since been working alongside the rest of the PennLUG train builders in working on the layout, and was a part of the small team which completed PennLUG’s famous roundhouse in Spring of 2015. Since then Glenn has been working to expand his train fleet.

Glenn has a Flickr page and a Youtube channel, where he often uploads videos pertaining to LEGO trains.

Glenn formally left the BMR team in October 2021 to pursue other projects and grow the hobby in other ways, but remains excited for BMR’s future.

Elroy Davis – BMR Contributor, LAN Ambassador

Elroy first became interested in trains as a young child, drooling over his older brother’s HO layout.  That interest lay dormant until around the turn of the century when he visited a train show featuring a layout of the New England LEGO User’s Group (NELUG).  Soon after the show he joined NELUG and, not much longer after that, found two copies of 4535 – LEGO Express Deluxe at a local toy store, kicking off his journey into the world of brick-built trains.

These days Elroy collects and models in multiple scales, including N, S, L, and 1/8 scale Live Steam, focusing much of his research and time on the former Rutland Railroad of Vermont.  When not working with trains, Elroy spends his time raising four of his five daughters (one has gone off to college), building non-train projects, and taking part in historical reenactments of the American Revolution.

Jim Catagnus Jr – BMR Web Master

Jim first became interested in trains and model railroading from his Dad Jim Sr at a very young age. They took many trips to Lancaster and the Strasburg Railroad, and other steam railroads in PA, NJ, and Maryland. Jim Jr was also introduced to LEGO at an early age, but it wasn’t until much later that he go into LEGO train building.

Today Jim enjoys working with technology and  LEGO. He spends time with his wife and two children, working on various LEGO sites, and building with his family.

Gerbrand “raised” – BMR Contributor

Matt Csenge – BMR Contributor, Model Team

Chris Stone – BMR Contributor, Model Team

Aaron Burnett – BMR Contributor, Model Team