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#1350 BURLINGTON NORTHERN GONDOLA CAR BN 32454 KIT HO *NOS* OVP GREEN
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The Burlington Northern Railroad
(reporting mark BN) was a United States-based railroad company formed from a
merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970
and 1995
Its historical lineage begins in
the earliest days of railroading with the chartering in 1848 of the Chicago and
Aurora Railroad, a direct ancestor line of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy
Railroad, which lends Burlington to the names of various merger-produced
successors.
Burlington Northern acquired the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway on December 31, 1996, to form the
Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (later renamed BNSF Railway), which
was owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation. That corporation was
purchased in 2009 by Berkshire Hathaway, which is controlled by investor Warren
Buffett.
History
The Burlington Northern Railroad
was the product of the merger of four major railroads: the Great Northern
Railway (GN), the Northern Pacific Railway (NP), the Spokane, Portland and
Seattle Railway (SP&S) and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad
(CB&Q).
The four railroads shared a very
intertwined history, due to the efforts of James J. Hill, the railroad tycoon
who had founded the Great Northern Railway. Hill purchased an interest in the
Northern Pacific in 1896 as the railway endured a period of financial turmoil.
Hill attempted to merge the two railways but was rebuffed by the leaders of the
Northern Pacific.
In 1901, the two railways teamed
up to purchase nearly all shares of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy
Railroad, giving both a needed connection to Chicago, the nation's railroad
hub. That same year, came the next attempt to merge the railroads with the
establishment of the Northern Securities Company, a trust that controlled all
three, with Hill serving as president. The company was sued in 1902 under the
Sherman Antitrust Act and in 1904 the Justice Department won in the Supreme
Court ruling Northern Securities Co. v. United States.
Although the ruling forced the
three companies to be operated independently, they were still closely linked,
even sharing a headquarters building, the Railroad and Bank Building in Saint
Paul, Minnesota. In 1905, the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway was
founded. Like the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, this new railroad
was co-owned by the Great Northern and Northern Pacific and allowed both to
access the Pacific Northwest.
Leaders attempted to merge
another two times, in 1927 and 1955, but were unsuccessful.
The four railroads were finally
cleared to merge on March 2, 1970, after a legal challenge that once again went
to the Supreme Court. Under the leadership of Louis W. Menk, the newly
established holding company, Burlington Northern, Inc. purchased the four
railroad companies and merged them into the Burlington Northern Railroad. Louis
Menk became the companys first president and CEO.
To further expand the Burlington
Northern, a single track was constructed in 1972 into the Powder River Basin to
serve various coal mines. The expansion was a source of traffic unprecedented
in United States railroad history. In 1971, the first full year for the new
railroad, trains carried 64,116 million revenue ton-miles of freight, by 1979
the total was 135,004 million Most of the increase was attributed to Powder
River coal from Wyoming.
The Burlington Northern, along
with handling freight trains, briefly operated inter-city passenger trains. The
BN had started operations just a matter of weeks before the end of service of
the original California Zephyr, which had been operated by the CB&Q, in
conjunction with the Denver & Rio Grande Western and Western Pacific
railroads, and continued to operate the North Coast Limited, Mainstreeter,
Empire Builder, Western Star, Denver Zephyr, "Gopher", and
"International", until Amtrak took over intercity passenger service
in May 1971, thus becoming the last "new" Class I railroad to operate
its own passenger trains. The BN also operated a commuter line inherited from
the CB&Q from Aurora, Illinois to Chicago Union Station. This line is still
owned and operated to this day by the BNSF Railway under a purchase-of-service
agreement with Metra.
In May 1980 when Mount St.
Helens erupted, the BNR owned the land around the summit of Mount St. Helens in
Washington state. In the 19th century, the United States government distributed
land to railroads as a way to open up the American West and the 9,677-foot
(2,950 m) peak was granted to the Northern Pacific. It was inherited in the
1970 merger by Burlington Northern. Following the eruption the land including
the volcano was subsequently transferred in a land swap between the railroad
and the United States Forest Service so the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic
Monument could be established.
On November 21, 1980, the St.
LouisSan Francisco Railway was acquired, giving the railroad trackage as far
south as Florida.
In the early 1980s two
independently operated railroads, owned by Burlington Northern Inc. were
absorbed into the Burlington Northern Railroad; the Colorado and Southern
Railway was absorbed in 1981, followed by the Fort Worth and Denver Railway in
1982.
The railroad relocated its
headquarters from Saint Paul to Seattle, Washington in 1981,[4] as well as its
parent company and sister companies.
All of Burlington Northern,
Inc's non-rail operations were spun off to a new company, Burlington Resources
in 1988.
The railroad once again
relocated its headquarters in 1988, moving from Seattle to Fort Worth, Texas.
On September 22, 1995, the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway merged with the Burlington Northern to
create the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. However, the merger was not
official until December 31, 1996, when a common dispatching system was established,
Santa Fe's non-union dispatchers were unionized and the implementation of Santa
Fe's train identification codes systemwide.[5] On January 24, 2005, the
railroad shortened its name to BNSF Railway.
Burlington Northern used fuel
tenders between specially equipped locomotives in areas that lacked service
facilities. BNSF has eliminated this practice with the construction of new
facilities like the Hauser Refueling Facility in Rathdrum, Idaho.
The Burlington Northern
traversed the most northerly routes of any railroad in the western United
States. These routes started at Chicago, Illinois and ran west-northwest to La
Crosse, Wisconsin. From here the routes continued northwest through Minneapolis
and St. Paul, Minnesota to Grand Forks, North Dakota. From Grand Forks the
routes ran west through North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho to Spokane,
Washington. The former GN routed through North Dakota/Northern Montana,
crossing the continental divide at Marias Pass, while the former NP line routed
through the southern part of Montana (which was spun off to Montana Rail Link
in 1987), crossing the continental divide at Mullan and Homestake Passes. At
Spokane the routes split into three. The former Great Northern route ran west
to Wenatchee, Washington, crossed under the Cascade Range at New Cascade Tunnel
on Stevens Pass, and descended to the Puget Sound region through Everett,
Washington. The former Northern Pacific turned southwest towards the
Tri-Cities, then northwest to Yakima, Washington, and crossed under the Cascade
Range at Stampede Tunnel, descending to the Green River Valley at Auburn,
Washington where it connected with existing NP lines from British Columbia to
Portland, Oregon. The Spokane, Portland and Seattle ran southwest to the
Tri-Cities, then followed the north bank of the Columbia River to Vancouver,
Washington.
With the acquisition of the St.
Louis San Francisco Railway the route was extended into the South Central and
Southeastern United States.
Transport Statistics shows BN
operated 23609 miles of line and 34691 miles of track at the end of 1970; it
shows 4547 SLSF miles of line not including QA&P and AT&N. At the end
of 1981 BN showed 27,374 miles (44,054 km) of line and 40,041 miles (64,440 km)
of track.
At
the time of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens the summit of the volcano
that was blasted away was owned by Burlington Northern. Following the eruption,
Burlington Northern agreed to a land swap with the U.S. government and
exchanged its square mile (2.59 square kilometer) of land on the mountain for
national forest land elsewhere to allow for the creation of the Mount St.
Helens National Volcanic Monument to preserve the volcano and allow for its
aftermath to be scientifically studied.