PanAm Railway... A chance discovery.

If anyone is wondering... What's up with the Panam railway boxcars??? I don't know if this is commonly known or not but it MAY have something to do with who pays Taxes on the land that Guilford uses in Laurence Ma. That's right... Panam railway. It's probably just a Tax evasion scheme. Go Figure.

And how would you know or prove this???

Rooster, your on the right trail but for the wrong type of taxes. There is some truth behind this. Keep looking for that LOST link.

I can't say much more

nhguy21

Searching Google for 'Pan Am & Guilford' at the same time should pretty much clear that mystery up........

I did (googled) and it didn't (clear things up). Care to elaborate? NHGUY, how 'bout a better a hint.

So where is the "meat" of the accusation here??

All we have is two vague references and an accusation on which there is no solid legal foundation (so far anyways..). Unless someone can more clearly demonstrate otherwise, its just another unsupported comment/opinion based on the past history of the company in question.

There may be truth to it, may just be a grain of it, but so far the accusers have done nothing to provide us with solid facts, legal interpretation, or anything useful in terms of evidence or explanation.

As the fictitious A-Number-One (Emperor of the North) said...
"Sounds like a ghost story to me."

If company "A" is making money and company "B" is losing money how do you off set losses ??

ProRail, I'm with you... sounds like somebody stirring up theories... wink wink, nod nod. maybe it's Dave Fink himself having some fun.

It certainly sounds far fetched, yet there is a precedent here.

You have to remember who you are talking about. Pan Am Railway is a paper only company, which owns both Pan Am World Airways, Boston & Maine Airways, and Guilford Rail System.

If Guilford makes money and Pan Am/Boston & Maine Airways loses money, then the tax credits from one off set the others tax liablity.

Now see, that is what I was asking for..something a little less elusive.

And it ain't the first time a business has done this.

I was under the impression that in the aftermath of the Lockerbee bombing, Pan American World Airways went bankrupt and disappeared. Did Guildford or someone else in the meantime, purchase the rights to the Pan American name from its creditors or what or whomever would have had a right to?

Not being very astute in corporate manipulations, I thought that once a company goes bankrupt (past the reorganization phase, when it just simply folds up), the name as well as the goodwill as well as the assets essentially goes up in smoke and cannot be retrieved since there are no "surviving" creditors. In that case does it go into the "public domain" and if so, how is the "rights" to the name of the failed company legally transferred to some other company wishing to use that name.

My interest in this issue has been sparked in this thread because of my planned "proto-frelance" model railroad time-frame scenario where an abandoned "fallen flag" is resurrected and reconstructed over the route of the original railroad due to changed (better) traffic conditions at the later time frame after decades of abandonment, where a new company has done this, wishing to restore and preserve the former name as a "heritage" tipping its hat to the original.

Obviously, "modelers's license" allows a hobbyist to create any freelance scenario (though recent UP and other lawsuits on model railroad manufacturers seem to place a damper on that assumption?), but in my case of a "proto-freelance" model railroad, where one assumes a "what if" (or more specifically in my case, "a few years ahead in the future" time frame for a model railroad based on a ficticious prototype as having been reconstructed from an original abandoned prototype, how would the legalities be affected of such a "new" prototype company using the name of the original prototype company, and what would be the implications (for reasonable relevance in the prototype world) of my planned layout to use my desired railroad name in creating a "history" for my model railroad, as a representation of my "new" ficticious reconstructed prototype railroad?

I have already created such a "history" of what, how, and why my planned layout would represent as a "new" ficticious prototype from the abandonment of the original, through to the new energy situation in the world which would have created the need to reconstruct it "in a few years ahead in the future". I guess the one thing I have possibly missed in the "history" process is would my desired name to keep the original falen flag: ie, would I as a new prototype company be able to legally use the name of the original "fallen flag" prototype railroad? Would I have to revise my model railroad "history" on account of legal impediments in the prototype world?

Sincerely,

Vytautas B. Radzivanas
Perth, Western Australia

guilford owns Pan AM airways

Here's a summary as best I know it:

Timothy Mellon owns Guilford Transportation Industries

Guilford Transportation Industries owns Guilford Rail System, Boston & Maine Airways, and Pan Am Airways.

Pan Am Airways no longer exists as an entity - Boston & Maine Airways operates the Pan Am Airways or Pan Am Clipper Connection or whatever the official name is.

Guilford Rail System was recently renamed as Pan Am Railways - still under the the parent company of GTI.

Am I right about all of this?? I'm just trying to make sense of this all in my head.

-Chad

Chad, you're close, but they've also changed the name of Guilford Transportation Industries to Pan Am Systems. So now it looks like this:

Pan Am Systems
Owner of:
Boston & Maine Railroad and Maine Central Railroad, d/b/a Pan Am Railways;
Boston-Maine Airways, d/b/a Pan Am Clipper Connection

and several other entities, including PermaTreat, Aroostook-Bangor Resources, and NorthPoint.