My name is Ed Burns and a retired NP-BN-BNSF Clerk from Northtown, where I spent most of my 38 year railroad career. My seniority date was 4-13-1966.
I was working an afternoon yard clerk job at the Northtown 43rd Avenue Yard office and finished my tour about 1AM as a BN clerk. I saw the first BN 97 arrive with new BN locomotives (2072 and onward) {they were order for the SPS} and depart shortly thereafter.
The former CBQ crews talked about “Motors and Waycars” only to discover they meant locomotives and cabooses.
Things were confusing in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area as this was one of only two points (the other was Billings/Laurel) where all three lines came together.
We did have meetings before the merger to acquaint employees about the new properties, but the real trial came after the merger.
Things went smooth, considering the many people involved.
The clerical roster was easy as it was dove-tailed by seniority date and actual age.
My best job after the merger was a relief job on the former GN side. That got me information on the physical location of former GN yards and industries.
I would like to hear from others about their experiences, good or bad.
One thing I remember Norm Lorentzen saying was that the best thing that happened with the BN merger is that it was delayed two years, from 1968 to 1970. He said those two years gave them time to work out a lot of potential problems, and because of that, the merger ended up being much smoother.
I was around for the 1968 ‘no merger’(working for the CB&Q). I went in the Army in the fall of 1969 and missed the 1970 ‘merger day’. When I returned in 1972, I did check with my old employer and found that I could get my job back, but would have to stay in La Crosse to ‘protect my rights’. I could transfer to the Mpls/St Paul area but would be dropped to the bottom of the engine service pool(sorta expected). I decided to go back to school and did not look back. Most of the folks who did stay for the merger were able to keep their job, but there was a lot of shuffling as facilities were combined.
In 1977, my Mother called and told be that the ‘railroad’ called and wanted to talk to me. I called the number and they were looking for experienced former employees. I turned them down.
In the 80’s I got another call and found out they were looking for former employees in locomotive service with ‘experience’ to move to the PRB for coal train service. By that time I had a good job with IBM, a family, and did not want to move.
I have several friends that have retired from the railroad and seem to have weathered the mergers OK. One was a conductor on the MILW and had to suffer through the financial failings of the company, the SOO merger and the following CP merger. He was able to stay in his original location and job almost to the end(he worked on the Ford Hauler job until the Ford Plant in St Paul closed. Being that we are the same age, he got to retire 2 years earlier than I did.
The railroads have changed a lot since the late 60’s when 18 year old railfan kids hired on. Of course, a lot of industries changed as well.
This a difficult question to answer as the 1970 merger was a time of great confusion for all. X-GN TYE were coming into X-NP yards and CBQ road trains were coming into Northtown for further switching. The one thing the BN did was to consolidate waybills into a central location. First it was the former GN Minneapolis Jct yard office and finally to a newly leased (later purchased) facility in Fridley adjacent to the Northtown Yard. This is our present office.
The former GN “Q” Yard (in SE Mpls/St. Paul) was blocking westbound trains and Dayton’s Bluff (X-CBQ) handled eastbound trains as the three flat switching of the NP at Northtown (A, B- & D) yards were rebuild into the Hump Yard. We have a Receiving Yard, Departure, and Bowl Yard at Northtown where cars were humped into blocks for outbound trains. It seems like we jumbo packed Minot and west cars for Minot to sort out and then jumbo packed east cars for us to make into new trains. I heard that Minot (Gavin) switched westbound cars for twelve hours and then switch eastbound cars for the other twelve hours.
We had two hump leads and two hump engine sets (SD9, GP9B, and SD9) around the clock. A third set was a spare and was used on transfer runs. The Northtown facility was completed about 1976, although parts of it were operational before 1976.
Blocking was changed from year to year. Chicago did some switching and Galesburg did other blocking.