New York, Rio & Buenos Aires Line (NYRBA) Consolidated 17 Fleetster  NC657M   (c/n  1)

                                

                                   NYRBA met opposition from Pan American every step of the way.   Condescending to the demands
                                   of Juan Trippe and his influence, governments bent over backwards to acquiese to Pan Am's requests
                                   but made life difficult for others.  One such was Argentina who insisted that mail should reach the U.S.
                                   in seven days, versus the eight it was taking the Commodores.  To overcome this, NYRBA purchased
                                   four Consolidated Fleetsters.  These left Buenos Aires a full day after the Commodors and caught up
                                   with the lumbering flying boats somewhere along the Brazilian coast, whereupon the mail was transferred.
                                   NYRBA's fate was finally sealed when Postmaster General W.F. Brown elected that he would only grant
                                   an east coast of South America air mail subsidy to Pan American.   James Rand, NYRBA's chief financial
                                   backer (of Remington-Rand fame), agreed to sell out to Pan American, and the noble experiments
                                   conducted by NYRBA in South America came to an end on 19 August 1930.   Most of the Fleetsters
                                   in NYRBA service were on floats.  Just why this one, in the Convair acquired photograph above, is in a
                                   snowy environement is not clear.