Nostalgia & History > Pan Am eastbound freight

Eastbound Pan Am freight at North Adams, MA.    April  2013.

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Very nice image.

Nice catch Bruce.  Ben

Is it safe to assume that the old Pan Am Airlines has nothing to do with the railroad but how is it they use the Pan Am Logo?

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography

photobob Wrote:
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> Is it safe to assume that the old Pan Am Airlines
> has nothing to do with the railroad but how is it
> they use the Pan Am Logo?

They bought it.

Nice shot. Liked the brief SD era on PAR. Nice reprieve from all the safety cabs out there. The new GE’s are cool but just not the same.

Posted from iPhone

photobob Wrote:
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> Is it safe to assume that the old Pan Am Airlines
> has nothing to do with the railroad but how is it
> they use the Pan Am Logo?

Owner Timothy Mellon bought the trademarks of bankrupt Pan American Airlines in order to use the brand for a low cost startup air carrier he started.  It offered very cheap fares and infrequent service between such secondary airports as Portsmouth, NH, Gary, IN, Belleville, IL and Sanford, FL.  The airline ultimately shut down and Mellon decided to rename his Guilford Transportation Inc. to Pan Am Railways.

Dave

The Air Carrier was Boston and Maine Airways.  For a short period of time (the airline went out of business)  Guilford owned a railroad named after an airline and an airline named after a railroad.  The elder Fink who ran the company and knew Mellon when they both lived in Guilford, Connecticut and possibly Mellon knew Juan Trippe and or one of his kids if my memory is correct.  It would take some time to look up my notes on this.
Dick Eisfeller

Dick Wrote:
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> The Air Carrier was Boston and Maine Airways. 
> For a short period of time (the airline went out
> of business)  Guilford owned a railroad named
> after an airline and an airline named after a
> railroad.  The elder Fink who ran the company and
> knew Mellon when they both lived in Guilford,
> Connecticut and possibly Mellon knew Juan Trippe
> and or one of his kids if my memory is correct. 
> It would take some time to look up my notes on
> this.

I’m pretty sure Boston Maine Airways was another Guilford subsidiary that operated as a air commuter operation for Guilford’s Pan Am, which operated from 1998 until 2004.  This was the third iteration of Pan Am as an airline.  Much like Mellon’s railroad, a key aspect of their business model was to pickup older equipment on the cheap, in this case well-used Boeing 727s.  The high operating cost and low fare yields ultimately doomed the operation.

Dave

Quacky management.

Is this train EB or WB?  And where in relation to Hoosac Tunnel?
 

Moonshiner Wrote:
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> Is this train EB or WB?  And where in relation to
> Hoosac Tunnel?
>  

Eastbound, having just crossed the Hoosac River.  The industrial track on the left serves a scrapyard.  The tunnel entrance is about a mile ahead.

Dave

Based on the what look like Omya limestone slurry cars, this may be a weekly solid train off the VTR at North Bennington or Hoosick Junction headed for Portland for breakup and further movement to Maine paper mills.  The traffic subsequently changed to route former GMRC over Bellows Falls to Pan AM where it continues to move today, leaving Rutland Saturday mornings.  Some rumors that once trackwork north of N. Bennington is complete and Pan AM spends its free grant money at Hoosick Jct that the traffic will move back to that route.