Pan Am box car

[Anonymous]

While driving thru Fairfield Maine saturday,right down the road from the Guilford Springfield Terminal yard I was stopped at A train crossing watching the train go past, when I saw what looked to be A brand new A real nice color blue with white Pam Am logo box car.I know Guilford owns Pan Am but did not know they brought this name to rail. A friend said they were closing Pan AM airline because they had unionized and were opening a Boston and Maine airline. I wonder what the B M airplane would look like? well thats all Dan

[Anonymous]

There have been a few of these newly painted boxcars on the NERails list, here's one:
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo=2005040716130931374.jpg&bydate%3A28

Interesting for sure!

Bob Boudreau

[ericsp]

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=1&TOPIC_ID=33647

[Anonymous]

If anybody is interested in painting their own, Highball Graphics already has the decals for them (in both HO and N)

http://www.mgdecals.com/F-236.htm

[MisterBeasley]

This was related to a hot topic on a Flight Sim forum a while back. As I recall, the owners wanted to furlough all the highly-paid Pan Am pilots and replace them with the cheaper Boston/Maine pilots, but they were doing it by re-flagging the planes or something. It seemed at the time like a transparent attempt at union-busting.

[davekelly]

I must have missed something. I thought Pan Am disappeared years ago. Could someone fill me in please?

I think a plane painted in SF's War Bonnet scheme would be way way cool. Would love to see the CNJ logo on a plane's tail! Of course a plane in UP colors, I think, might end up looking like a banana.

[bikerraypa]

Me too. I thought Pan Am was dead back in about '94. What gives?

[dharmon]

I already got a set of the Highball Graphics decals, now just got to get one of the Athearn FMC boxcars to use them on.

Guilford's parent company bought Pan Am (pretty much the name was all that was left after Chapter 11). Pan Am was/is still operating as an airline ...on a much smaller scale. They sold off most of their routes/assets to pay off debt. The Boston and Maine Airline vs Pan Am thing is very similiar to the B&M/MEC/ST tact they took with the unions in the 80's. Reorganized under Springfield Terminal to leverage the union contracts with MEC and B&M. Right or wrong depends on which side of the paycheck you're on I guess.

[Anonymous]

Oddballs is also making a set of Pan Am decals now, BTW

http://mopac1.tripod.com/899.gif

[MisterBeasley]

The airline formerly known as Pan Am did go under. However, there remained some sort of a corporate shell, which had the name "Pan Am" among its tangible assets. Somebody bought the name. They were flying DC-9's (I think) out of the commercial side of Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire down to Fort Lauderdale and some other places.

In good times, this might have been a success, but with the general problems the airline industry has had since 9/11, and the high fuel prices, they weren't getting enough business to cover their costs, I guess.

[davekelly]

dharmon and Mister Beasley,

Thanks for the info! Pretty cool how much one can learn on this forum!! And way cool how many folks there are out there willing to help!

Dave