Burlington Northern in the Beginning

Like watching early Conrail with all the mixed fallen flags. Thanks for sharing!

Looks like Milwaukee road units mixed in the bn stuff

They weren't as many BN locomotives in the early 1970s as the late 1970s.

Not Fallen Flags, but incorporated ...

great northern James hill ran steam ships on red river then started great northern with no help from government. Name any other railroad company that can match that

NO HORNS THANKS GREAT VIDEO

SP got the WP

I have many pictures of Wp power coming up to Seattle generally it wouldn't go any further than that WP is bicentennial units also made it up there. S p's run through power from Brooklyn in Portland would come to Seattle also.

Damn shame we couldn't hear those Alcos rapping past... but not a criticism. Just how it was.

Those elegant E's and F units with the a@b set up! The most coveted deisel in any HO set and my favorite real one! Those throaty sounds are heavenly

Thanks for posting. Good to see that historic raw power at work.

In di bininging

Getting it done. Make America Great Again!

The WP units look like they ran up to Klamath Falls to interchange. I think I have seen pictures of them there before.

Talk about colorful and classic motive power,,you have to love northwest railroading! Also makes me appreciate the BNSF color scheme a little more since I was a die-hard Santa Fe Warbonnet fan. The orange and dark green coming from a bit of history for sure. I don't think BNSF should have dropped the cigar band design on the nose though. That BNSF slash doesn't quite cut it with me.

In reference to the Western Pacific locomotives, In 1931 the WP and the Great Northern built a north/south line to compete for traffic with the Southern Pacific. The WP swung north out of Keddie and built northwards to Bieber, California before the WP ran out of money, so the GN built further south to link up. It was known as the "Inside Gateway" or "Highline" and it was fairly common to see WP power up north and SP&S and such down in Keddie. After the merger into the Burlington Northern this arrangement stayed in effect until the merger of the Western Pacific and Union Pacific in 1982-3. To the best of my knowledge the BNSF still uses this route into Stockton, California. While the UP uses the Feather River route.

I absolutely love this ❤️😍 video. Because of the variety and mixed consist. Thanks for sharing this with me and others.

Those Big Sky Blue, Great Northern passenger trains were some of the most striking trains on the rails. I don't know if they made money on those trains, but they went all out to repaint the equipment and make the trains look nice. They obviously cared about making the passenger trains look nice. Some railroads did not.

Rainbow times indeed!

Notice one thing missing? Graffiti. Not a trace of any anywhere

Spectacular video. I saw some of these passenger trains on the 4 track "Racetrack " on the "Q" in Chicago Illinois in the Lawndale neighborhood.

I they think they have them in the 40s or the 50s, but I'm not sure. I know in the late 80s Union Pacific bought them

Love your dubbed in engine and track sounds. My favorite paint scheme? BN's SkyBlue.

Holy crap at all the unbelievable, crazy consists! Wow! Fun times back then during the BN transition years before everything became green/black.

Love big sky blue!

Great footage, you can tell the railroad industry was failing in the 70's

The glory days.

Man I love these kind of videos, I know I wasn’t born in the 1960s to see this is the 1970s but I wish I was. It shows me how much kooler things were back then.

super cool to see all that power lashed up!!! many youths into railroading will never know the power shaking the ground with first and second gen 16 EMD cylinders (and alco) going crazy!!as one who grew up near the KATY's Denison Ray Yards, thank you!!!!!

Still better than my microphone

Look! Not a one tagged by vandals!

WP run--thru units c9mm9n

*common

Great old footage! Even a few old Alco's!

Man that’s one big ass snowplow on the front of that western pac diesel!

ive never seen a western pacific loco here!

Really cool.

The WP and the Great Northern interchanged traffic @ Bieber Ca. often the locomotives would go through.

Thanks for the share this is to cool . Growing up in the 80’s I got to see some of these fallen flags and Bn still used a couple high hoods in Seattle on the main line ❤

Seeing what my parents would see when thay were kids makes me happy nowadays the railroad is kinda bland with BNSF, Union Pacific, CSX & Norfolk Southern being primary

Western Pacific and Great Northern/Burlington Northern had a run-through power agreement for trains between Klamath Falls, OR and Stockton, CA for Inside Gateway trains connecting to the Santa Fe at Stockton. For a while in the early 70's, Stockton was host to a rainbow of BN power despite how far it was from the rest of the BN. This agreement ended overnight in 1980 with the announcement of the UP merger, and WP was forced to use their four-axle power over the steep grade.

Thank you for posting this archive. Best time of my life. Absolutely awesome watching these old trains.
🚂🚃🚃🚃