BNSF + NS?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I live in the spokane washington area nowadays and have been seeing A LOT of Norfolk Southern locomotives.

anybody know why?

2

Because they’re about to merge. Just kidding, I hope… BNSF says it will be making “a big announcement” early this year. Who knows what that will be, if it’s even true. There are rumors everywhere about BNSF mergers with the KCS or CN or NS. Personally, if BNSF is to merge with somebody, it will be NS in my opinion. Just take a look and think about the new BNSF H3 or Heritage 3 (although there is no heritage in it) paint scheme.

  1. They have removed all traces of their ATSF and BN ancestry in H3.

  2. They changed the green paint in H1and H2 to black in H3. Hmmm…NS is all black.

  3. The new BNSF logo’s lettering style in H3 is very similar to NS’s.

  4. Most Important: They wouldn’t even have to change paint schemes or the name of the railway if they merged. BNSF Railway would still be the name. Burlington Norfolk Santa Fe.

This is just my take on this rumor. I’m sure it’s all wrong, but the new paint and logo just has too many clues in it to ignore.

3

My opionion…its CN, thats what i origanally heard

4

If I had to guess, I’d say CP. I don’t think that NS is in the mood to be bought out and the management styles between the two are completely different from what I’ve heard. the reason that the SOU/NW merger worked out so well is that both companies had similar management and also were pretty close to each other in terms of corporate offices (I’m sure that has a role in it to some extent) Plus with NS and KCS announcing theoir deal, i don’t think that it’s goingt o be KCS either. Or at least I would hope not.

5

makes sense to me.

BNSF is on the west coast, NS on the east.

also, let’s not forget the Shouldnt Paint So Fast fiasco.

i was under the impression that KCS was part of UP…Thanks for that one.

dont even get me started on that travesty they call a logo…back to the old blue cross thingy. at least to me it looks ugly.

6

just trading hours for hours on engines.saw alot of bnsf on csx this weekend.
stay safe
Joe

7

It’s a rumor addressed in other posts. In Georgia, I’ve seen BNSF power on the lead, as well as UP locomotives. I have seen them on both CSX and NS. I’ve even seen CSX and NS power running around on each other’s rails. It’s not unusual to see foreign power on railroads nowadays… so it probably doesn’t mean anything.

Erik

8

I see NS power on the BNSF here in IL alot but for some reason this past few weeks I’ve seen more than usual…not that that has anything to do with a merger. CEO Matt Rose announced in Ft. Worth a week or so ago that they will announce something big in the near future, being in the first quater of 2006. BNSF has been rumored to be going towards a merger for a few months now from many different web-sites(non railfan related). They all say that BNSF has interests in NS,KCS and CN, which seems logical, a BNSF/KCS merger will get BNSF to Mexico and many ports. A BNSF/CN merger would get BNSF into Canada although I wouldn’t think BNSF would want to merge into all the problems CN is having. A BNSF/NS merger would make the first east coast to west coast railroad…which we all know would be the biggest and “badest” railroad out there. If BNSF was smart they’d go for NS.

When the new paint scheme came out I thought BNSF was planning to merge…and now they have a “big” announcement…it would only make perfect sense for the new paint scheme to be realated to an upcoming merger.

If the paint scheme is related to a merger, then a BNSF/NS merger it is. Like Kfleeman1 said…the new “black” and letter style shows a little more “NS” in BNSF.