About Darwin's Toys
Our Mission
Darwin’s Toys is named after Darwin Bromley. Our primary mission is to preserve Darwin’s legacy by keeping the games he designed alive and being played by train game fans of all ages.
Trella Bromley – Owner and CEO
Trella got hooked on board games in college in 1989, where she first fell in love with the Empire Builder series. She met Darwin in 1994 in the Train Gamers Association (TGA) area at Gen Con, and the rest was history. Part of Darwin’s legacy is their five children.
Before Darwin passed away, he was working to reacquire the rights to the games he designed. Trella completed that quest, and Darwin’s Toys was born.
Trella is among the very best train gamers, with multiple national and major tournament championships in TGA Puffing Billy® Tournaments, along with several train game victories at the World Boardgaming Championships and other conventions.
Trella has been a Senior Tournament Director for the TGA since 1999, and is a past President and Board Member of the TGA as well.
Jeff Jackson – President and COO
Jeff has played board and card games all his life and became a avid train gamer when he learned Rail Baron in 1977. Jeff first encountered Darwin and his brother Peter in 1982, right after the first edition of Empire Builder was released. Suddenly he had a new favorite train game, and he gained new longtime friends in Darwin and Peter.
Jeff became active in the TGA in the early 1990s, and also has multiple train gaming championships on his resume – although Trella will note that she has more TGA National Championships than he does…
Trella and Jeff have been close friends since 1995, and became TGA partners in 2001, when they began running the TGA’s major tournaments together. When Trella created Darwin’s Toys, it was only natural that she asked Jeff to work with her to make it happen.
Jeff has been on the TGA Board since 1999, and continues to run the TGA Tournament operations.
Who was Darwin???
Darwin Bromley (1950-2019) was one of the visionaries of the gaming world, a founder of Mayfair games, and an early pioneer in importing Euro games including Settlers of Catan into the US market. He was a passionate supporter of the gaming hobby and of train gaming in particular, whose contributions include designing Empire Builder, Express, Alibi, and the Sim City card game.
Along with his brother Peter, Darwin amassed a phenomenal collection of board games, and his legacy is secure with their donation of that collection to the Strong Museum (National Museum of Play) in Rochester, NY. He was inducted into the GAMA Hall of Fame in 1996. Darwin helped the Train Gamers Association get started, and has been a huge contributor to the organization ever since. Darwin other great passion was Scouting. He held numerous positions within the Scouting Organization and earned several awards including The District Award of Merit and The Wood Badge, among the highest awards an adult scout can receive. He combined his two hobbies by helping to create the Scouting Game Design badge.
