What do you think of BN merging with ATSF to become the BNSF Railway?

Question

What do you think of the Burlington Northern Railroad merging with Atchison Topeka-Santa Fe Raiload to become he BNSF Railway? Personally I liked it better when they were two seperate railroad companies, I've always loved the BN growing up and I loved the big giant BN logo.

Answer 1

I believe you will find that it has already happened.

Answer 2

I also liked things the way they used to be when you had the AT&SF,B&O,CB&Q,C&O and others I haven't listed here. Now on would think if there was just one rail carrier, then it would seem rather simple, but it would seem quite complicated to me. I mean, who in their right would want to keep their eye on so many miles of track? I get tired just thinking about it.

Answer 3

It was inevitable.

Though the question frequently comes up, there may be one more merger amongst the giants, but I think it would be a hard sell to get around any appearance of monopoly or ability to control overall shipping rates.

But, I'll have to agree, as far as aesthetics goes, the new livery leaves much to be desired in my book.  How they ever came up with the 'two tone' whatever you call it of today, when they had green, white, yellow, blue, silver, black and red on the pallet to work with.

Answer 4

I have little personal experience with either rail carrier.  However, there are only so many tracks and routes and if a larger entity controlled a larger portion and therefore speeded interchanges and deliveries I cannot say this is a bad thing.  Many of my customers complain bitterly about the railroads specifically missing cars, poor updates, late deliveries etc.  Of course the government needs to keep an eye on a single vendor controlling any particular region.

Answer 5

Operations on the BN system took a back seat to many of the Santa Fe, this is what many former BN people say. I talked to a roadmaster once, he siad the year of the merger a lot of his long term projects were scrapped and the budgets went elsewhere.

Answer 6

The current Bunsuf livery is what they call the "Heritage" livery..

It's the same color scheme as the old Great Northern, which was one of the railroads in the original bunch that consolidated in the 1970s to form the Burlington Northern.

I didn't care much for the old GN "pumpkin" orange and green scheme either.  I've always liked the Mean Green Machine BN scheme as well.

Answer 7

I liked it better before the Burlington (CB&Q) merged with the Northern Pacific.  I liked the CB&Q logo on the shinning silver Zephyr.

However both mergers opened up a much greater network of track and doubled the rolling stock.

Answer 8

BNSF: Big New Santa Fe

SPSF: Shouldn't Paint So Fast

Now that was a paint scheme!

The Rat