BNSF vs UP - is it just me?

I've been Great Northern since before I had any idea what Great Northern was. I've been faithful to BN, and now I count "my railroad" as BNSF.

But ..

What the heck is it with "heritage"? I mean, I see UP having fan trips, and doing things like bringing the Big Boy back to life, having museums and huge get togethers - their paint jobs on their locomotives reflect pride and a general willingness to say "We came from somewhere."

Is it just me, or is that spirit really lacking in BNSF?

Feels to me like BNSF is more likely to RUN from their past, not embrace it as something to be proud of.

 

It might be that BNSF is being controlled by a massive financial corporation, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, rather than being operated as a family-oriented company, more interested in public relations i,age and employee morale.

 

In the east, CSX too has little interest or recognition of its history, while NS shows pride with Heritage locomotives and steam. I agree with Hytech, that a company's profile is established by its senior management. Some care and to others, its just wasteful foolishness.

 

Sure makes sense.

Historically, the business is founded by someone who is passionate about whatever it is that the business DOES. Down through the years, that passion is diluted (unless they have heirs that are also passionate - which is not the usual thing) and finally we have people operating a business as .. a business.

The bean counters take over, and the decisions are made at the level of "we should do that, it will save us 5 cents a unit".

Which I can understand in the hard cold business world - it's tough out there.

It'd sure be nice to be interested in a railroad that was interested in itself, though...

 

In some ways it seems to me their seeming loss of identity may also stem from the fact that they really don't HAVE an identity. Each of the major roads making up BN gave up their names, then when the merger with SF came, essentially both roads gave up THEIR names.

It seemed to me I understood that people were told rather tersely that it was BNSF, not Burlington Northern-Santa Fe.

Though, you gotta admit - that BNSF swoosh is exciting!

 

Well, and what I thought was kind of weird - and really spoke of a tendency to run away from their history - is that the whole BN-SF logoing and any showing of the old redesigned herald with both names surrounding each other - seems to have vanished. I agree - what the heck is a BNSF.

Union Pacific is unabashedly Union Pacific no matter how many companies they've swallowed up.

 

By one point of view, UP is the only Class 1 operating under their original charter, hence the only "unfallen" flag.

That original charter was signed by Abraham Lincoln.

For me, UP has always represented the biggest & best. Big Boy, Big Blow and Big Jack, the DDA40X, are all epic machines.

And, as much as we're impressed by 3985 and the revival of 4014, the pride of the fleet has always been 844.
The "Living Legend" is the only Class 1 steamer that has been rostered continuously since it was delivered from ALCO.

When your heritage reads like that, even the most uncaring in management doesn't want to mess that up.

 

I agree on railroad names with recognition -- Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific all instantly identifiable as railroad properties. CSX and BNSF have recognition of course, but their acronyms are lost in a sea of similar industrial names that have lost their identities.

We may perhaps never see another round of Class 1 mergers, but heavens knows what kind of messy names might surface as a result. Back in 2000 when CN and BNSF attempted to merge, the name would have been an uninspired, generic North American Railways. But I guess that's preferable to CNBNSF!

 

Mm .. that is the problem. Now, granted, we're "foamers" so we are more sensitive to knowing about RR history.

But .. when I hear UP, I think of history, of Promontory Point, of building the great railroad - when I hear GN, I think of James Hill and his amazing story of building a railroad almost single handedly - when I hear BN I think of forests and mountains and snow coverered peaks .. and yea, when I hear BNSF I think .. .. well... nothing. And CSX is the same way - I know the name, but it has no "meaning".

Considering that the RR's are entering a lull right now - a "lull" that might not go away - might be a good time to brush up your PR skills ..

 

I was kind of hoping BNSF would restore some of the Warbonnet paint jobs on the very weathered ones that they are still running. I guess that won't happen looking at the comments from BNSF management you guys have posted. Wouldn't it be great to see a brand spankin' new warbonnet painted engine?

 

You mean, BNSF's spiffy logo ain' doin' it for you?

To be honest, I hadn't noticed until you pushed my nose in it that the warbonnet stripes and EVERYTHING are missing off the new locomotives - it says BNSF on the sides and the front, and that's it. Heck, I think that vast orange wasteland in the middle has gotten larger too. Just think how cheap it would be to simply paint the whole machine orange .. with the BNSF logo a foot high under the window.

 

S'sad thing, even little kids don't get taken to see trains anymore. I mentioned the visceral feeling that I get when one of those big monsters idles past and my friend looked at me like I was crazy. Said he'd never even thought about looking at one, and never thought about taking his 5 year old son down to see a train.

Maybe we're just old fashioned and the world really HAS passed us by ..

However .. my wife went to Seattle this morning on Amtrak - and there were 10 or 15 people waiting to board. She's meeting HER friend from Portland there, and that friend found that the Portland/Seattle train was full the day she wanted to go - guess they moved their plans a day. Not sure if that means lack of equipment, or unexpectedly brisk ridership, tho.

 

I've always thought it was kinda bizarre having a "full train". I mean, obviously a full plane is one thing, there's no way to add space. But Portland's a big yard - you'd think there would be a spare Amtrak coach sitting around? Of course, I know just slightly less than nothing about the logistics of adding a passenger car to a train - but still ..

And I certainly agree - telling people "sorry, no room, you have to leave - but come back another time" just won't cut it. That'll be grist for a lot of mills for a long time "Well, we were going to take the train, but it was full. We got a nice cheap flight out though, we'll probably just do that next time."

I do love train travel though - we took a trip from Seattle to St Paul - stayed overnight and came back the next day. The point was the trip, not the destination! On the way home, we met a couple in the diner on their way from New York City to Seattle - sleeping car all the way. She was bored, but letting him have his dream - bored on a trip I've been wanting to take for at least 40 years.

 

It is amazing just how much paperwork, permissions and work it takes to go to a yard and just pickup another car. The big roads have so many levels of bean counting going on that dropping back to punt and add another car gets to be a nightmare for the employees. Not to mention siding lengths and other considerations.

In the recent past, 1950's and earlier, another train would be run as a second section and people could ride. But that was a different world.