BNSF Contest - They're giving away HO scale locomotives - Open to the public

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I found this on BNSF’s Twitter feed, I thought I would share it here for anyone who is interested. BNSF is running an essay contest and the prizes are HO scale BNSF locomotives! All you have to do to enter is join their Friends of BNSF website and write a 100-300 word essay about how freight rail is important to your community’s future.

Here’s a link with the contest details:
http://bnsf.com/media/news-releases/2012/september/2012-09-13a.html

Here are the prizes they are offering:

FIrst Prize: http://www.bnsfstore.com/default.aspx?p=viewitem&item=BNSFR0038&subno=&showpage=8&subcat=

Runners Up: http://www.bnsfstore.com/default.aspx?p=viewitem&item=BNSFR0028&subno=&showpage=8&subcat=

The only thing I am not sure of is whether or not those prizes are operating locomotives or display pieces only, but they’re still cool. I’ve asked BNSF’s Twitter to clarify and I’ll post back if I hear from them.

So, are you entering the contest? [:D]

2

Well the first place one is unpainted pewter, so that’s not an operating model. Harder to tell on the other one.

3

As a general rule I have never seen BNSF or any of the other railroads sell working MR in their stores, so it would surprise me if these worked.

4

CSX does, but it looks like a cheaper model with horn-hooks and the like.