A little while ago, I started compiling a list of passenger equipment currently in wreck train service on Pan Am Railways. Pan Am has two big hooks, a 200-ton and a 250-ton crane with associated support equipment. One is based out of East Deerfield, Mass, and the other out of Waterville, Maine. The reason I'm creating such a list is because some of the pieces on the two trains I believe are now uncommon pieces. For starters, a Boston and Maine troop sleeper, and two B&M heavyweight converted baggage cars. From my research so far, these are the last full B&M heavyweight bags left and the last B&M troop sleeper.

From what I can tell, heavyweight baggage cars of New England heritage are few and far between. There are several wooden New Haven bags scattered across Connecticut and western Mass, but no full heavyweights that I can find, other than the combine bag-RPO at the RMNE. The only MEC heavyweight bag (that I know of) is also at the RMNE, although two MEC bags converted the other way into passenger cars were at the B&ML for some time. I've read that one or both of those may no longer exist. As for the BAR, Rutland, CV, GT, I've not found anything there either. I would welcome being proved wrong in my findings for any of the New England roads mentioned above.

The point of my posting is to see if anyone can provide more info on these pieces in PAR ownership. Specifically, I'd like to determine what road(s) each was built for or associated with before becoming Guilford/PAR "B&M", and their associated number and role(s). I've attached below the small roster I've created. Three of B&M heritage, one possibly of L&N, and the fourth unknown. I'm fairly certain these are all the pieces of passenger equipment currently in wreck train service. Any input would be much appreciated.

-Alden Burns

There are a handful of RUT baggage and RPO's around:

Rutland Steel Bag #129 is at Steamtown (I think its still intact)
Rutland Steel Bag #130 is at a feed store in Moira, NY (I think its still intact)
Rutland Wood Bag #134 was near Montpelier, VT and for sale a decade ago. Not sure if it is still there.
Rutland Wood RPO #170 is in southern NH

- Rob

Well, that's news to me. Glad I'm wrong, thanks!

Wonder what their future holds, now that CSX is looking into purchasing Pan-Am RR. NS is ruffling a few feathers, because of the Pan-Am Southern, which was a Pan-Am(Guilford) & NS `partnership' operation.

https://www.progressiverailroading.com/m_a/news/CSX-to-acquire-Pan-Am-Railways--62164

Now is the time to try to preserve one of the B&M wreck trains intact. There are several plain bearing cars still in that train. Would be a shame to lose this example of what is likely the last wreck train(s) in the East.

Not to mention the vast amount of Snowplows the Pan Am has.

Whether the railroad goes to CSX or NS both railroads have recently disposed of such type equipment.

It's not in wreck train service, but at Canterbury, NH just west of I-93 and north of Concord
is a former B&M wood baggage car in good condition, on a short piece of track.

I wonder what CSX would do with the intellectual property assets of the historic Pan American World Airways (logos, etc.) which Pan Am Railways owns. Surely CSX wouldn't go ahead and rebrand itself as Pan Am... would it? Juan Trippe would be spinning in his grave.

Presumably they would be able to add it to their licencing portfolio, so as well as charging model railroad manufacturers to use their intellectual property, they now have a global market of model aircraft manufacturers (diecast & plastic kit) to add to their revenue stream!

I believe that PanAm will remain with the corporate shell that is selling the railroads to CSX. It would be easy to keep that going and collect those kinds of royalties.

By the way, I understand that certain real estate has already been transferred internally within PanAm out of the railroads (B&M, Maine Central and Springfield Terminal are still "live" corporations each holding railroad assets) into the parent company - parcels in east Mass. and in the Portland area. I assume they are not going to CSX.

Slightly OT, but what is going to happen with Pan Am Southern, which is jointly owned with NS? I had read earlier that there might be some sort of "Shared Assets" arrangement, similar to (little) Conrail. Is this still in the cards?

Rutland combine 260 is in our collection at RMNE. We also have at least one wooden New Haven baggage car.

Thank you all for your comments. One of the points I'm trying to make generally is there does not seem to be very many steel baggage cars from New England left. It appears that there do seem to be more wooden bags than steel. The three steel B&M baggage cars still in service with Pan Am come across to me as something that is not insignificant and is at the very least worth documenting what they were on predecessor roads. The other cars on the train I am interested in tracking down as well. As I continue my research I'm becoming more confident that the car 3288 is in fact L&N, hopefully, someone with knowledge of such cars can confirm this. The diner 3202, I have no clue where that has come from. I've attached pictures of all the cars in question below. 3288 and 3203 are at the bottom of the bank of pictures. All the pictures have come from rrpicturearchives, with the respective credits contained within the photo.

We also have a lightweight baggage car that came from Metro North’s work fleet. W-10 is a former NYC car. Don’t know if that’s of interest.

Martin’s Country Store & Farm on County Route 6 burned down Saturday morning and was a total loss. I assume this car is sadly no longer extant, judging by the first few sentences of this news story (The rest is locked to subscribers).

https://www.nny360.com/news/stlawrencec ... 2d298.html

From this video it looks like the wreck train is alive and well. Video taken from this year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmL8sn4XJC0