NGI Freight Car Kit(s)?

[loco-n]

Just found an advert (MR or RMCM November 1975)  IN-501 Cactus Flat Freight Station.
The Company in Florida/Key West was A&J Models.
Franz

[mionerr]

I believe the Florida company was Mil-Scale. I have one of their structure kits, an open sided shed.

[pmpexpress]

Franz,

Although all of the more common releases (i.e., assuming any of these early products could really be called mainstream) and the elusive rotary snow plow kit are on hand, I am not 100% certain that unassembled examples of all of the Remington Locomotive Works freight car model releases have been acquired for my collection and/or research purposes.

   

If the boxcar and/or reefer kits came in a generic white box, with an A&J Models product label, the models were marketed by A&J Hobbies, a firm that was formerly located in Cape Coral, Florida (which is approximately 40-miles from my location).

Run by a pair of really eccentric brothers (now deceased) who had retired from the military, a long-time fixture in Cape Coral, the now defunct business marketed a number of different craftsman kits, in several different scales.

Roger,

Although Mil Scale Products, which only produced HO and N-Scale wood structure kits (e.g., the N-Scale "SN" series car repair shed, covered bridge, snow shed, and small turntable) did not print any address information on their boxes or assembly instruction sheets, I believe the firm was formerly located somewhere in the Midwest.

Well there you have it...

A few more potential articles concerning now defunct, pioneering N-Scale firms:

Mil Scale Products, Quality Craft / Gloor Craft Models, Remington Locomotive Works (who ironically did not produce any locomotives), Wabash Valley Red Ball (Wabash Valley's rolling stock product line, which was marketed alongside the firm's "Hometown Series" structure kits), and the really obscure A&J Models and Swift Line (a small, now defunct, Duarte, California based, N-Scale craftsman freight car and structure company).

NJoy

[kalbert]

Given the growing interest, Paul's suggestion of an NSE article sounds like a really good idea.

For sure. Even if most products are RTR now, people still like research and documentation, particularly about rare or unusual things. Write it!

[Nato]

              I built a number of the NGI kits, the Zephyr Cars were "Mirror Image" like Con Cor  GN diner. The diaphrams in the kits were or were copies of the MRC Rowa C&O car ones. I was able to purchase from Con Cor Rowa MRC car interiors which could be cut up to use as car interior's , IE: the dining lounge area and kitchen space from C&O Club Series cars worked as diner detail. Con Cor also sold me those ugly red dome interiors for Budd dome cars which I painted blue. The HI Level car came only as a step down end car, but NGI was nice enough to send me extra ends with the HI Level door so I built two step down cars and two pure Hi Level cars. Interior seats were from MRC Rowa C&O cars cut apart at center divider area and spliced together. I used a number of the Flying Rio Grande decals on the enclosed sheets to letter some Rio Grande painted Rowa Cars.     Lastly I owned one custom painted Fleishman F-3 A unit in C.&N.W. passenger scheme, the number on this loco matched the Northwestern loco number on the NGI decal sheet. I was able to later buy a couple of the Zephyr Car Kits which are still un built. Nate Goodman (Nato).