Phil's Narrow Gauge Show & Tell

[PeterT]

(I would have called it a Drag & Brag, but I didn’t actually make any of these.)

Some of you will remember Phil Dippel’s kits, made under the Phil’s Narrow Gauge brand. He produced a lot of rolling stock over the years, until he stepped back around 2015. He now does limited runs which sell out very quickly. His latest is a D&RGW RPO.
https://www.philsnarrowgauge.com/default.html

Back in 2018 Phil pulled out his box of 100 pairs of Aristo Classic passenger car trucks and he made kits of short passenger cars, based on those on the Sierra RR. The original plan was to offer kits of 4 coaches for about $700, and he quickly had a wait-list for the 20 sets of kits. I personally had never seen one.

Then a couple of weeks ago I noticed an auction had a lot of his cars - work caboose, drop bottom gondola, and 6 of the short passenger cars! My pal @naptowneng had been looking for a short caboose for his SPNG train, and there was #202.

The roof lifts off and Phil provided all the details.

Another beauty was a Business Car, B-2, with a full interior.

There were also a couple of regular coaches, #203 and #204. We managed to buy 5 of the set of 6!

Someone put these together, painted them, and did ll the detailing. Here’s an extract from the 46-page kit manual.

A lot more complex than that NENG short coach I built 10 years ago.

Anyway, I thought it might be of interest to you guys.

[John_Bouck]

I got my start scratch building with Phil. I might have built a few following the plans, but after that it was kitbashing using his metal, brass, and wooden parts. He also supplied me with lots of Accucraft trucks.
I hadn’t been on his site for years, then remembered he posted some pics of my projects.
Thanks for posting this.

[rmccown-admin (Bob McCown (Admin))]

Phil is a great guy, I have built a bunch of his kits. He even custom cut me a 40’ Hanrahan reefer.

[PeterT]

I did hear back from Phil, and he confirmed the B-2 car was never part of his kit offering. Nor was the single-door full baggage that we passed on. He did say he sold scribed siding that matched, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to modify them.
I emailed Phil to ask for some window castings, if there are any left. My idea of a Business car involves windows in the end of the lounge, Should be fun trying to cut windows in a 3-layer ply coach end.

[rmccown-admin (Bob McCown (Admin))]

My guess is that those are some of Don Winter’s experiments. I have a bunch of Don’s kits ([passenger car thread here.](Don Winter passenger car kits))

I have sides cut for a few of the business cars. I should build them some day.

[PeterT]

@rmccown-admin

those are some of Don Winter’s experiments.

You mean the baggage and the B-2? It’s striking how similar in construction your Don Winter coaches are to Phils. But Phil’s website makes no mention of Don.
Phil reckoned someone bought some extra scribed siding and made up new sides for the baggage and B-2. The latter isn’t very different from a combine; just needs the doors filling/covering.

[Rick_Marty]

When Don became ill and had to close his business and hobby he fire sale’d his existing inventory and spare parts. I think I remember him making a deal with someone (Phil) to continue some of his kits. But Phil greatly improved them and included assembly instructions beyond Don’s typical 2-3 pictures of the finished car and a few sentences basically saying “a rail hobbyist should already know how a car goes together.”

[rmccown-admin (Bob McCown (Admin))]

Exactly. Don and Phil were friends, or at least friendly. Before Don passed away he and Phil worked out a deal for the models and all. I got a ton of white metal castings from Don while he was cleaning out shop.

[PeterT]

I took the coaches round to the Spa Creek & McKenree (@naptowneng) to see how they looked on real track.

And a shortie video:

- YouTube