Western Railroad Discussion > BNSF SD60M #9297?

What's the story behind the odd paint job on the 9297? I saw this unit on and NS coal train here in North Carolina a week or so ago.

Thanks for any info!


BTW, NS is still holding it hostage in the coalfields of WV.











-Derek
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NS-NC/

http://search.bnsfpix.com/profile.php?locoid=9297

BNSF had several experimental schemes. There's one that's even worse, I can remember the number right now.

lonlasher wrote:

> There's one that's
> even worse, I can remember the number right now.

Ah, you're thinking of the "barfbonnet", #9647:

http://bnsfpix.com/search/profile.php?locoid=9647

Aaron
http://www.hockley.org/trains

Salisbury wrote:

> What's the story behind the odd paint job on
> the 9297? I saw this unit on and NS coal train
> here in North Carolina a week or so ago.

This was BNSF's first, experimental, orange
and green paint scheme, applied in May 1996.

http://www.qstation.org/9297/9297.html

It looked more or less like the "Heritage 1" we
know today, except that the fuel tank and trucks
were silver, and instead of yellow separation
stripes, it featured two variations of red
stripes, one on each side of the locomotive.
BNSF polled its employees on which version they
preferred. Reportedly the simple red stripe on
the engineer's side won out over the multiple
red/blue stripe on the fireman's side. Before
any more repaints were done, the decision was
made to go with solid yellow stripes instead of
red. The next repaint was BNSF GP38-2 2099 in
August 1996, along with new 960-series Dash 9's
that started arriving the same month. These still
featured silver underframes.

http://www.qstation.org/2099/2099.html

The next repaints, which appeared in early 1997
(GP35 2540 and GP38-2 2094) received the now-
standard version of H1 with green underframes:

http://www.qstation.org/2094/2094.html

BNSF 9647 was not an "experimental" paint scheme, but rather a "commerative" scheme for the BN/ATSF merger. Everyone calls it the "barfbonnet", and I do agree with the way most photos turn out. However, if you see it in person, it is actually pretty cool looking, IMO.

BNSF 9297 was in fact experimental, with two different schemes applied (one on each side) You can see the difference in the nose.

Matthew
http://bnsfpix.com

It was in Los Angeles in March....

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?f=1&i=228692&t=228692