Fifty years ago today, I was sitting in a college classroom. I did not know this had taken place. At 12:01am, March 3rd, 1970, Burlington Northern, Incorporated, had launched their operations. Here are a couple of memories, from my collection:
Well, arguably, the best looking freight paintschemes to my eyes, I actually have more BN equipment in Z Scale than my favorite road, NP, simply because of availability. BN models get produced in Z, NP... not so much.
The earliest experience I had up close and personal with the BN was 1980, right after it took over the Frisco. The BN management was grouchy, because they embarked on an ambitious project of "standardizing the appearance" of BN power. Proud Frisco men pushed back by stenciling the Frisco emblem on the brand new green paint.
Hard to accept that it's been 50 years. I think I posted this link before, but I remember seeing this 1973 BN TV ad during NFL games. As a teen, I thought it was the neatest thing.
And so yesterday, I caught this train with both NP/MRL and BN and even a Frisco car in it, twice! https://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?threads/bnsf-glendive-mt.85243/page-31#post-1125943
My contribution to BN's 50th. Caboose 12575 in Grand Junction I think it was 1998 but can't remember. I hardly ever labelled my pictures, was in too much of a hurry I guess. Maybe someone can tell us if this caboose held any other numbers on predecessor RR's. We had 2 cabooses in GJ for a while till one of them got ran into pretty hard and was bent so badly you couldn't open the doors, the other went back to Denver a couple years ago.
I already put it elsewhere, but I can't resist to the temptation of puting here again this pic of an old BN hopper I shot last november in .... Klewiston, Florida. Dom
Somewhere on the Internet, there used to be a site which listed all of the BN cabooses. Builder, date, etc. Wish I could find it again.....
