Niagara class
Wreckage of the Niagara-class USS Princeton
Owner:	United Federation of Planets
Operator:	Starfleet
Active:	24th century

The Niagara-class was a type of Starfleet vessel in service in the late 24th century. This class of starship had the unusual distinction of having three warp nacelles.

Ships of the class Edit

Named

• USS Princeton (NCC-59804)

Uncertain

• USS Wellington (NCC-28473)

Appendices Edit

Appearances Edit

• TNG:
  • "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II"
  • "Unification I"

Background Edit

The name for this class was devised by the production staff and was revealed by the Okudas in the Star Trek Encyclopedia, including the ship's registry number, which was taken directly from the model itself. Production photos of this class appeared in the special features section of the TNG Season 3 and TNG Season 4 DVDs.

Studio modelEdit

The scratch-built "kit-bash" studio model of the pre-damaged Niagara-class USS Princeton was created at Gregory Jein, Inc. by Jein and his staff for the "graveyard" scene that the USS Enterprise-D traveled through following the Battle of Wolf 359 in "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II". Jein used the molds he had of the Ambassador-class and the two-foot Galaxy-class studio models to cast parts for the secondary hull and nacelles, respectively. The other parts he built from scratch. The model was from the start constructed as being pre-damaged. Michael Okuda later remarked, "Greg Jein built a number of severely-damaged hulls and parts for the graveyard scene. Greg is one of the unsung heroes of Star Trek. (...) The three-nacelled ship was made by Greg Jein. (...) I remember reminding Greg that Gene didn't approve of odd-numbers of nacelles." [1] The appearance of the class in "Unification I" was stock footage of "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II".

Apart from the Niagara-class, Jein also constructed the pre-damaged Freedom-class USS Firebrand for the episode, using his own production assets unlike Okuda, Rick Sternbach, and Ed Miarecki, who constructed their models from commercially-available AMT/Ertl model kits (enhanced with miscellaneous other pieces and first built "intact" and "damaged" later).

External links Edit

• Niagara class at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Niagara-class reconstruction at Ex Astris Scientia