I thought I remember BAX being split off from BN in the Early 80s?
Yes, Burlington Air Express was at one time owned by the BN Railroad. Now it is again owned by a Railway this time Die Bahn (German National Railway).
FYI, BN Airmotive was also owned by the railroad. It provided flight services at Minneapolis St Paul International Airport had had a large hangar painted in BN colors. We sold it in 1982.
When we sold Burlington Air Express, we also sold the right to use the “Burlington” name for the service for many years. I was part of both transactions.
Oh no…
The German Railway System’s name is NOT Die Bahn. It is Deutsche Bundes Bahn until is was partially privatized and then the “Bundes” (means Federal in German) was removed from the name. It has been (since WW2) and continues to be know as DB. The East German railway system was known as the Deutsche Reichs Bahn (DRB) (German Empire Railroad) prior to WW2 and Deutshce Stats Bahn after WW2 (DSB) (German State Railroad) until re-unification.
Now, it would not suprise me in the least for a familial name for it to be Die Bahn because that translates in Engli***o “The Railroad”.
DB is still Deutsche Bundesbahn, but it is haughtily known as, and thinks of itself as “Die Bahn” It is more of an “Octopus” than the Southern Pacific ever was in its heyday. It is not at all privitised yet, and may never be, we shall see.
BAX Global, formerly Burlington Air Express, started out as “Burlington Northern Air Freight.” I recall seeing a b/w photo of one of their Boeing 707’s (late 1980’s) with the BN logo on the tail.
When I worked at their hub at FWA in the late 80’s early 90’s my hat had the green/white BN logo just like the locomotives .
I don’t know how much of an Octopus DB is today, because I know they have spun off regional systems, some of whom are now using light rail technology, including in one case (Saubruken?) having a third standard gauge rail on a meter-gauge light rail (really street tram) system so that regional trains (including one line penetrating Czecholslovakia) penetrate the town center instead of merely ending at the Hauptbanhoff some distance from the business district.
They haven’t spun them off, they have lost the operating contracts for the systems. The Governments of some of the Länder have held open bidding for the regional subsidized passenger services and DB lost.
What makes DB an Octopus is what else they own. Stinnes AG, a large European and Worldwide 3PL, Railion Deutschland, Railion Nederland, Railion Danemark, Hangartner ( Swiss Forwarding Co.), also now Bax Global. It looks like the will sell their interest in the Scanlines Ferry service. But they wanted to buy the Hamburg port operator, they only backed off after a big public outcry. They bought one of their bigger open access competitors RAG. They own the largest European Intermodal Operator “Kombiverkehr”. Schenker AG is another Forwarder, Transfracht, I could go on and on.
The trams in Saarbrücken and Karlsruhe are standard gauge and operate off of 750V DC in the city, and switch to 15kv/16.7Hz AC to run over DB Netz and function as tram-trains. It looks odd to see an ICE passing a tram on an adjacent track.