TrainFest 2019 Announcements

[sirenwerks]

None of the BN SD45s made it to the BNSF merger

Just goes to show how much I care about it, I guess. My interest in BN peters out after SLSF entered the picture too. Or was it the MKT? MoPac maybe? One of those Okie-Texarkana-Gulf State roads; I just never saw the point of going to that quarter of the lower states...

[davefoxx]

Just goes to show how much I care about it, I guess. My interest in BN peters out after SLSF entered the picture too. Or was it the MKT? MoPac maybe? One of those Okie-Texarkana-Gulf State roads; I just never saw the point of going to that quarter of the lower states...

Well, it wasn't the MoPac or the MKT that diminished your interest in the BN. 

[Missaberoad]

...but without the Frisco merger you wouldn't have had these...

https://www.railpictures.net/showimage.php?id=473638&key=8719001

[C855B]

Just goes to show how much I care about it, I guess. My interest in BN peters out after SLSF entered the picture too. Or was it the MKT? MoPac maybe? One of those Okie-Texarkana-Gulf State roads; I just never saw the point of going to that quarter of the lower states...

[...sigh...]

BN ate the Frisco. I made a specific railfanning junket to AR/OK - California was home then - to capture the SLSF just a few days before the buyout was consummated in 1980. Sadly, I didn't know much then about the RR and was flailing about looking for traffic, only managing to catch a couple of GP15s on a branch before problems back home aborted the trip. I did score a box-full of Frisco-logoed promotional materials and employee timetables. Considering I now live in the general region served by the SLSF, I really ought to have a table at a local train show to empty aforementioned box.

FWIW, MKT and Mop (and WP) were assimilated by The (Yellow) Borg in '82. Similarly, that dampened my interest in contemporary UP, initially from the outrage that they wiped the images of WP and MKT off the map immediately, then eventually in the realization that MP's operating managers were now running the railroad, directly resulting in the 1990s traffic (mis)management meltdown.

[Missaberoad]

MP's operating managers were now running the railroad, directly resulting in the 1990s traffic (mis)management meltdown.

Similar case at BN after the Frisco merger, the entire corporate culture changed and it was a different BN after that...

Same could be said for Soo/Milwaukee, CN/IC and SP/DRGW...

[EspeeGoldenState]

Similar case at BN after the Frisco merger, the entire corporate culture changed and it was a different BN after that...

And nothing has really changed, it can be the BNSF on paper, but there is still a huge separation between BN and SF in the ways things are ran.

[nkalanaga]

"And nothing has really changed, it can be the BNSF on paper, but there is still a huge separation between BN and SF in the ways things are ran."

Part of that is intentional.  The two railroads had some major operating differences, starting with their basic long-haul traffic.  The Southern Transcon (ASTF), was, and still is, largely high-speed intermodal.  The Northern Transcon (GN), while carrying a lot of containers, is heavy on grain and lumber products.  Different freight, different climates, different operations.