I was thumbing through a Morning Sun (I think) Color Guide to GN Freight and Passenger Equipment and saw photos of two passenger cars I have never seen despite a lifetime love of all things BN-related. They were in the Burlington Northern “hockey stick” livery but with Great Northern titles and the last, modern Rocky logo. What was the purpose of this deviation from Big Sky Blue? I read in another thread that GN was hoping BSB would be the BN livery. Why this concession to a Burlington Route style? How many cars were painted as such? Did this result in GN trains with the old Omaha Orange/Pullman Green, BSB, and then Cascade Green cars?
Yes, for a brief time one could have seen GN passenger trains carrying
all 3 color schemes. 1969 is the year that comes to mind. Very few cars were
painted in the experimental pre-BN scheme. As for why, the combined
management of the merger partners (which was in place in 1968) made
the decision to go with Cascade Green, instead of any pre-merger scheme.
The merger was scheduled to be accomplished in 1968, but lawsuits by
various organizations and cities delayed it (yet again). Another reason
could be that GN’s mangement, by 1969, had admitted that BSB was not
quite the corporate cure-all they were hoping for when they made that image
change back in 1967.
Rick
Thanks for your reply. In that same book was a photo of an ACF 3-bay hopper in a darker green than Glacier Green. The text says that most people thought this shade was darker. Was it actually Cascade Green? The time the cars were delivered would be right about the time of the pre-merger schemes.
The window of opportunity to paint passenger equipment Cascade Green was kind of short. There were only two passenger timetables published between the merger, and the inception of Amtrak.
However, there were a number of cars retained by BN (post Amtrak), which got the green hockey stick paint. I have a bunch of slides taken back in the mid 70’s, when they were stored at the Como shops in St Paul. I need to have them transfered to digital.
You wouldn’t happen to have a photo of the of the cars in question? I’ve never seen “green with goat”, only blue.
I’m afraid I don’t–I’d have to scan them. But what I will do is look up the actual book title and page numbers in case you come across it at your local hobby shop.
There is a roster of BN passenger equipment at the time Amtrak was created in the Burlington Northern 1972 Annual that was put out by MPS Publishing. The roster includes a couple of B&W photos of GN equipment in variations on the BN Cascade Green scheme.
I’d scan these and post them, but that’d cause all sorts of copyright heartburn.[}:)]
Mark Gosdin
Personally Mark, I wouldn’t sweat the copyright thing. I’ve scaned a few images and posted them here for informational purposes. There is a good chance that the copyright has expired due to the age of the material. In addition, it isn’t as if you stand to make a financial gain from sharing it.
In answer to your above question, BNSF4ever, the ACF cars you mention
are 4-bay cars built in 1965-well before the merger. Yes, the book (which I
own-surprise! surprise!) describes the Glacier Green as darker than
previous paint jobs. It still is a shade of Glacier green (sort of a jade color).
Oddly enough, the earlier Glacier-the somewhat lighter one-seemed to
fade rather rapidly in service, while the paint on these cars (171250-
171449) lasted without much fading for many years. I can recall seeing
examples of these cars in service in the late 80s, and while they were dirty
and rusty, the green had faded only slightly if at all. A fact to remember on
GN’s experimentation with Cascade Green and other paint schemes is,
the 50-foot boxcar series 319000-319499 were built in February 1970,
immediately before the merger and they were delivered in Big Sky Blue.
Some of the last cars in the series arrived on the property AFTER the
March 2 merger date, in fact. So, in conclusion, GN played with Cascade
Green only minimally, on a few passenger cars only. I have found no
evidence of GN freight cars in Cascade green. And contrary to my
previous post, it appears that the experimental passenger cars were
painted in Cascade sometime in 1968, according to GN pictorial Vol, 5.
That puts the repaints on a schedule to mesh with the first merger date,
which was postponed. Hope this helps.
From the 1972 BN Annual:
GN Did play with Cascade green on passenger cars.
From the 1972-73 Russian grain deal rush, I remember seeing some 40’ box cars with BSB style lettering that were in a dark green. At the time I assumed that they were BN Merger experiments, but they could have been painted in that dark glacier green. It wouldn’t suprise me to find that GN was frugal enough to want to use up any paint that they had left over.
Mark Gosdin
Thanks Mark! So the bottom one is the closest to how they actually ended up, the difference being the BN logo.
Yes, the first two appear to be directly related to the CB&Q’s Cascade Green and Wide White Stripe scheme. The final GN test scheme had the logo in the center of the car, while the BN Passenger scheme moved it to the end of the car.
I think the White Stripe and Blue in BSB that were it’s hallmark were also it’s downfall. The Blue could fade badly depending on the paint quality ( As Rock Island and Conrail both proved later on. ) and road grime showed noticably on both. BN’s scheme held up much better by not using much white and having a green which looked better when “weathered”.
Side Note: The BN’s 1980 merger with the Frisco was also delayed, by a law suit with the Katy, from the spring to the fall of that year. The result was that the Frisco took delivery of a series of 100 Ton Covered Hoppers in Cascade Green with SLSF reporting marks in white. Also, some of their shops appeared to have not kept a full stock of their standard paints past the original merger date as, in the summer of 1980, I remember seeing Frisco cars that had been repaired with the repairs painted in Cascade Green.
Mark Gosdin
Thanks Rick and Mark for the updates. I find all the pre-merger schemes fascinating. It’s als interesting that CB&Q and NP painted freight cars in cascade green but GN held up on that.
I sure wi***hat someone (ie, not brass manufacturers) in HO scale would put out GN passenger cars in BSB and BN passenger cars in the hockey stick livery. Well Rivarossi did, but enough said on that one. Surely it would be a niche market, but no less niche than some of the Budd offerings that Walthers made?
Stay tuned for the (rumored) Walther’s Empire Builder. Given the offerings
on the new GP20s, they might do a BSB Builder. Hope they will be accurate.
It would be nice as well if Athearn went back and did RTR offerings of the F45 and SDP40s…and if someone did a SDP45 in BSB that would be great too!