Nostalgia & History > BN 'heritage' cars in 1983

Well sort of, BN green is present, but GN and an SP&S (with a touch of green) remnants were still hanging around 13 years after the merger. Is the background a version of what spawned BN's green scheme?

I shot this on Sept.7 1983 @ Whitefish, MT

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valmont Wrote:
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> Well sort of, BN green is present, but GN and an
> SP&S (with a touch of green) remnants were still
> hanging around 13 years after the merger. Is the
> background a version of what spawned BN's green
> scheme?
>
Tough to answer in a concise manner. By 1967, the Hill
lines knew they were going to be able to merge, although
it took a second try to get it done. So, the Q became
sort of the "guinea pig" for the new "Chicago, Burlington,
Great Northern Pacific." A GP40 was given an experiemental
green paint scheme, and the SD45's and U23C's were ordered
with it. Plus, several orders of freight cars came in a
green sceheme you have pictured. There were also several
GN passenger cars that got green paint as experiments. These
all led to the final "Burlington Northern" paint schemes we
all loved, one of the great post merger schemes ever! I guess
the best answer is these were tests to determine the final
scheme.

Hope this helps.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Thanks Nick, those SD45's and U23C's showed up in Denver (got SD45 @ North Platte once) and even after the merger, when they had the small 'BN' I was still shooting them

Is that Whitefish?
KEvin

That particular SP&S paint scheme had its base color selected in anticipation of the BN merger, as were the cars' numbers (in the 318000 series). Approximately half of the series was delivered after the merger and lettered BN instead of SP&S, making these the first BN-lettered new equipment.

Carl Shaver
Lombard, IL

CShaveRR Wrote:
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> That particular SP&S paint scheme had its base
> color selected in anticipation of the BN merger,
> as were the cars' numbers (in the 318000 series).
> Approximately half of the series was delivered
> after the merger and lettered BN instead of SP&S,
> making these the first BN-lettered new equipment.


here's another box car in that number series, this one taken in Missoula, MT on Oct. 11, 1982 by Bruce Black

.... notice the small CAR-PAC lettering



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/13 13:36 by valmont.

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