# Northeast Narrow Gauge Kits



## sandbarn (Feb 13, 2010)

Hi Everyone,

Does anyone have any experience with 1:20.3 kits from Northeast Narrow Gauge/Northeast Model Products. I'm most interested in what's in the kits and how the parts are delivered (i.e. are all the parts pre-cut or do you just get raw stock and have to cut out the parts yourself)? Also how are the instructions? 

I've built two kits I got from Phil's Narrow Gauge and liked them very much and intend to get more. But Phil doesn't carry some of the rolling stock I would like to add to my inventory. Specifically short caboose, logging caboose, short coach, short combine, etc. 

I've ordered some basswood and plywood and intend to try my hand at scratch building very soon, but for now I'd like to keep to kits until my skill improves a bit.

Thanks

Lloyd


----------



## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By sandbarn on 01 May 2010 09:59 AM 
Hi Everyone,

Does anyone have any experience with 1:20.3 kits from Northeast Narrow Gauge/Northeast Model Products. I'm most interested in what's in the kits and how the parts are delivered (i.e. are all the parts pre-cut or do you just get raw stock and have to cut out the parts yourself)? Also how are the instructions? 

I've built two kits I got from Phil's Narrow Gauge and liked them very much and intend to get more. But Phil doesn't carry some of the rolling stock I would like to add to my inventory. Specifically short caboose, logging caboose, short coach, short combine, etc. 

I've ordered some basswood and plywood and intend to try my hand at scratch building very soon, but for now I'd like to keep to kits until my skill improves a bit.

Thanks

Lloyd









Some pre cut, some stock. Like a LaBelle kit if you have done any HO/O modelling.

Like this type of kit much better than laser kits, but that is just me.


----------



## itsmcgee (Jan 4, 2008)

I put several together. great value and good instructions. Never disapointed.


----------



## sandbarn (Feb 13, 2010)

Garrett, 
The reason I asked about being pre-cut is that I don't have any way to cut parts except for an xacto knife and sandpaper (not very accurate). My last involvement with HO was in the mid to late 70's. Don't remember any LaBelle kits. 

Mike, 
Thanks for the recomendation but could you be a little more specific about what you got in the kit? And maybe...., if you can remember, how long it took you to get it from them? 

I know there are a fair number of Fn3 modelers on this forum, so I'm supprised only 2 people have used any of these kits. If that is actually the case I would have to conclude these are not the best of kits or the company is not very easy to do bussiness with. The company has been in business for several years, could it be that only three people on this forum have found the web site and used their kits? I'm asking here because I have not found any way to contact the company on their web page. 

I hope the above paragraph dosen't upset anyone but I have to research companies as well as I can. I don't have $50 - $150 to "experiment" with. 

Lloyd


----------



## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

so I'm supprised only 2 people have used any of these kits 
Lloyd, 

That assumption is a bit premature? Just because only 2 people answer in the first 24 hours (of a delightfully sunny weekend suitable for getting outside to run trains,) doesn't mean that only 2 of us have experienced them. 

NENG originally drew plans for rolling stock that were given away in GR magazine, so you could make your own. 

My understanding is that they are a bit less complete than e.g. phils kits. But I know we've discussed this before, so I did what I usually do and searched the archives. Put this in the Google search box "site:archive.mylargescale.com northeast narrow gauge" and you'll get about 57 hits. One or two should tell you what you want to know.


----------



## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

It's been a long time (15 years?) since I built a NENG kit, but my recollection is that the wood came pre-cut but you still needed to do a bit of fine sanding here and there. That was one of their 0-4-0 Porter kits, so I can't speak to the rolling stock. From some of the open boxes I've seen of their kits at shows/stores etc. (back when stores used to stock them) the wood looked to be all pre-cut. There may be some things (steps, etc.) that they may give you a template for and you cut, or cut out of cardstock depending on which kit. 

http://www.nemodel.com/nng/index.shtml 

All their contact info (address, phone, fax, e-mail) is on their home page. How quickly they answer said phone/fax/e-mail, I don't know. In my dealings with them those 15 years ago, I found them rather helpful. 

Later, 

K


----------



## R Snyder (May 12, 2009)

NENG kits are not bad, but Phil's Narrow Gauge and Bronson-Tate kits are better in my opinion. Bob Hartford is again selling parts for his great kits minus the wood, if you want to do some partial scratch building.


----------



## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Lloyd, 
I think it's time for you to invest in one of these; http://www.xacto.com/Product/X75320 

this link will show you an Xacto Razor saw and mitre box. Great for accurate cuts with little sanding after. 

You will need it when you start scratch building. 

John


----------



## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By sandbarn on 01 May 2010 09:59 AM 
_{snip...}_ I've ordered some basswood and plywood and intend to try my hand at scratch building very soon, but for now I'd like to keep to kits until my skill improves a bit. _{snip}_ 
Lloyd

While I have nothing more that I can add regarding the NNG/NMP kits than what has already been mentioned. However, when you get around to the scratch building you may find the topic posted by Bob Sorenson (MLS - xo18thfa) on methods for building a rolling stock fleet rapidly. I turned Bob's topic into an article and stored it in a PDF file which you may download a copy of if interested.

How To: Build a Rolling Stock Fleet[/b]


----------



## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Totalwrecker on 02 May 2010 09:19 AM 
Lloyd, 
I think it's time for you to invest in one of these; http://www.xacto.com/Product/X75320 

this link will show you an Xacto Razor saw and mitre box. Great for accurate cuts with little sanding after. 

You will need it when you start scratch building. 

John 

Thank you, that is what I was going to suggest, a few good razor saws and a mitre box is required.

NWSL True Sander and Chopper II while not "required" would make life a lot easier also.

Get some C clamps and slide/lock clamps, small to medium in size.

A set of mini drill bits will be needed too.

All of this stuff is at most good hobby shops (clamps may be at the hardware) and cheap, should all be less than $200.


----------



## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

And this line of kits is 25+ years old, there was a shop in Maine that had several of their kits and built stock on display. The kits and instructions are top notch IMO, but are craftsman kits. 

Also, their plans were in Garden Railways magazine for years before they were discontinued for assorted reasons.

Hope this is of help?


----------



## sandbarn (Feb 13, 2010)

Pete,

You're probably right about people having more important things to do.







It's a beautiful day here also and I need to get outside and do some survey work to continue my track planing. I tried using the MLS search to find "northeast narrow gauge" but didn't get any results. Using the same search on Google I got 71,800 results (overkill).







I tried your search and got the 57 results you said. Like you said, there were about two of them that were useful. Thanks for the help, and perspective....

Kevin,

There email address says "webmaster". I wasn't too sure that was who I wanted to email for a product inquiry? Your info about actually seeing a kit does help me though. I thing I'll give them a try and see how it works out.

Everybody else,

You're replying faster than I can compose replies. Thanks to all of you for your help. Hartfords short kits are going to be my next step on my way to scratch building. I do have a razor saw but not a miter box. Guess I need to get one. And as soon as I get through here I'm going to down load that article.

Thanks all

Lloyd










P.S. I can't believe the spell checker on this site dosen't have the word "gauge".


----------



## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

There's also an info(at)... address there. I suspect both would get you a proper response. NENG isn't a large company (one or two people). Good luck with the kits. I've seen some stuff built from them and they're quite nice. If you get one of their loco kits, you may want to beef up the drive train, though. 

Later, 

K


----------



## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Over the years, I have built 3 of their kits: wedge snow plow, shorty combine, and a short caboose. It's been at 10 years since I built the last NENG kit. The first one the snow plow was built several years before I moved from Denver in 1993. As I recall the larger pieces are precut, but smaller pieces, like window frames needed to be cut from wood strips supplied in the kit. I think that these are nice basic kits. They lack the detail of a Hartford or Phil's kit, but they are a good basic start to add details you think that you need. When I bought mine, the trucks and couplers needed to be purchased separately.


I'm not trying to badmouth NENG, but check to see if they are really 1:20.3. I vaguely remember someone mentioning when Fn3 was getting started that the NENG kits might really be 1:22.5 not 1:20.3. This should be easy to check if you can get the length of a finished model and compare it to the length of the prototype. The kits that I built are 1:22.5, as I built them before there was very much 1:20.3 out there.


Chuck 


Here is a picture I have of the short combine and the short caboose. The cars are in Arizona and I'm in Virginia until next winter, so I can't get you a better picture.











Here are a couple of pictures showing a the NENG and an Accucraft short caboose from the rear. I did not add any detail to the caboose other than the conductor and the dog.


NENG caboose 











Accucraft


----------



## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

I'll give them a try 
Lloyd, 

As Kevin noted, 'they' is just one guy doing the stuff part-time, or so I understand. Websites of part-time specialist suppliers in this hobby are notoriously out of date, so your best bet is to call and chat with the guy who sells them. 

might really be 1:22.5 not 1:20.3 
Some may not be either - I recall many of the drawings they ran in GR [from which the kits were made] had 'generic' or 'typical' in their description. Certainly the early ones were 1:22.5, and then more were done in 1:20.3. I kept the coach drawing for a while, but then the Accucraft coaches arrived so I gave up on it.


----------



## Ross (Jul 19, 2009)

LATEST - Gent that runs NE has broken his shoulder (April 2011). On the mend but things are slow so you have to be patient. 
His son does a bit after his own daytime job.


----------



## tacfoley (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By sandbarn on 02 May 2010 10:08 AM 

P.S. I can't believe the spell checker on this site dosen't have the word "gauge".








..or 'dosen't'..............

tac
http://www.ovgrs.org/


----------



## tacfoley (Jan 3, 2008)

Over the years I've built a few of the cars and a couple of cabeese from the plans in GR and they were great fun. I'd add a bunch of Ozark stuff - NBW and so on - to make them more believably wooden-constructed, and in fact we'll be running a whole train of the skeleton cars and the shorty caboose tomorrow at a garden open day in a nearby village. I'll be making a youtube vid of it, and since the track will be laid in the courtyard of a group of Elizabethan alms-houses dating from 1601, it might be of interest to some of you out there. 

As I noted, I've never bought a kit, but the plans have been very useful, even though they are not metric. I just built them using the nearest thing I could fin, and funny enuff, they look just fine. 

tac 
www.ovgrs.org


----------



## parkdesigner (Jan 5, 2008)

I would contact Phil by email - at the BTS he was talking about "short" car kits he was planning... including a caboose and passenger car.


----------

