My son has taken a liking to the Burlington Northern scheme, because its in his favourite colour - green. I guess now it is up to me to figure out some history and places of interest to model with it. Does anyone know of any sites/books/anything that would give me a good start in figuring out about the BN? The only two things I really know are the common knowledge things like it was formed in 1970 with a merger between the GN, CB&Q, Northern Pacific and Spokane, Portland and Seattle and that they later merged in 1995/96 somewhere with the Santa Fe. All the in between stuff - like what paint schemes were used when and the types of motive power used and then specific routes and all that jazz. Any starting points? Thanks for your help.
Hundman Publishing has a great book called “Northwest Passage” that is still in print. Morning Sun has a BN color guide that is very nice. Kalmbach had a book out on building a BN layout, I think in N scale and I believe it is out of print but might be easy to find. There’s plenty of BN info out there in magazine articles, books, videos and DVDs. My computer is here at work and all my BN stuff is at home, I could make a more extensive list and answer some more later.
I guess that Friends of the Burlington Northern Railroad is the historical society for BN.
The Burlington Northern is my favorate railroad too! I grew up in Illinois along a BN line (former CB&Q and now BNSF) and I can remember that the diesels I saw in my childhood in the 1980s were all BN’s painted their cascade green glory. BN engines were practically the only trains on those tracks until around 1995 when Santa Fe painted engines started showing up too.
Mainly Pictures of BN engines and rolling stock
http://www.trainpix.com/BN/INDEX.HTM
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bn/bn.html
Friends of the Burlington Northern Railroad
http://www.fobnr.org/
Yahoo has an online BN discussion group
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/BNlist/
Thanks guys. This will give me a good start.
There’s some good info here;
hey skiloff, I took the BN for the very same reason and now 30 years later model the same. There are many books u can look at but on the internet: http://www.trainweb.org/screamingeagle/gallery/bnsf.html http://www.qstation.org/Paul_Anderson/index.html also for scenery ect. u can get many images if u just do searches ie. BN coal drag, BN bridges ect.
Plenty of on-line photos too, that’s for sure. Did someone previously mention the Fallen Flags site? That’s a good source.
Here’s some other items if you can find them:
Trains Magazine video: BN’s Chicago Racetrack
Pentrex video: BN E units along the racetrack
Ellis: Train 110 (I think this was a BN promo film)
G.Train Video: BN ~ The Thayer Subdivision
Charles Smiley DVD: Empire Of The North/history of BN
Most of these books are probably out of print, but if you are interested, here’s a partial list:
Motorbooks: BN and it’s heritage by Steve Glischinski
Four Ways West: Windy City To The Twin Cities: (Q/BN/BNSF) by John Leopard
Bonanza: History Of The BN by Bill Yenne
Hundman Publishing: Northwest Passage by Rob Leachman
Kalmbach Publishing: BN Diesel Locomotives by Paul D. Schneider
GNP: BN Locomotives 1970-1996 by Robert C. Del Grosso
Four Ways West: BN into the '90s by Joseph W. Shine
Morning Sun: The BN Color Guide To Freight & Passenger Equipment by David G. Casdorph
There is also a fairly new book by Brian Solomon titled Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway published by Motorbooks that has an extensive section about the BN.
And over the years there of course have been plenty of articles about the BN in TRAINS magazine. Some of these items maybe hard to find but hopefully that is some help to anyone searching out info on the lean mean green machine.