Niagara class

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

 * Named:
 * USS Princeton (NCC-59804)


 * Uncertain:
 * USS Wellington (NCC-28473)

Background
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 model
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 (NCC-1701-D) traveled through following the Battle of Wolf 359 in. Jein used the molds he had of the and the two-foot  studio models to cast parts for the secondary hull and nacelles, respectively, or as he has stated, "But we did a three engined ship for that and we did a one engined ship for that, which I think I still have someplace, because I just let them use that out of our stock inventory. We just took parts of the Enterprise we had left over and added nacelles and some other crap to it like that." (The Best of Both Worlds (Blu-ray) special feature, "Regeneration: Engaging the Borg"). 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." The Surplus Depot Z15 appearance of the class in  was stock footage  of "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II".

Apart from the Niagara-class, Jein also constructed the pre-damaged 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).