When created, Burlington Northern had a greater extent than any other U. S. railroad: Vancouver, British Columbia, to Pensacola, Fla. If you crossed North America from east to west, you had to cross BN rails or get your feet wet in the Gulf of Mexico or find your way around the north side of the city of Winnipeg. It was created on March 2, 1970, by the merger of the Northern Pacific Railway; the Great Northern Railway; the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad; and the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway. It was during most of its existence the longest railroad in North America, edging past the previous title-holder, Canadian National Railways.
Great Northern and Northern Pacific covered most of Minnesota north and west of the Twin Cities and the eastern third of North Dakota. West of there, the main lines of the two roads were as much as 200 miles apart, coming together at Spokane but separating again to cross Washington. The two roads were instrumental in settling much of the northern Great Plains, and they pretty much divided the northern tier of the country from the Mississippi River to Puget Sound between them (as the Milwaukee Road eventually learned).
The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy’s main axis was its Chicago-Denver route. Branch lines covered much of western Illinois, southern Iowa, northern Missouri, and southern Nebraska, and long branchless lines reached to Paducah, Kentucky, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Billings, Montana. Despite its image of diesels and stainless-steel Zephyrs, it was a very conservative railroad. The Spokane, Portland & Seattle was built to give the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific access to Portland, Oregon, from the east. It was owned equally by GN and NP, which acted more like stingy uncles than loving parents.
Making Burlington Northern history
Burlington Northern existed in a way long before the merger formalities of 1970. In 1901 Great Northern and Northern Pacific each acquired almost 49 percent of the stock of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, assuring a connection to Chicago from St. Paul, the eastern terminus of GN and NP. At the same time NP came under the control of GN. In 1905 GN and NP organized and constructed the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway. In 1927 the Great Northern Pacific Railway was organized to consolidate GN and NP and lease the CB&Q and the SP&S, but the Interstate Commerce Commission would approve it only without the inclusion of the CB&Q. The companies resumed merger studies in 1956, and in 1960 the directors of GN and NP approved the terms. Government approval and actual merger took another decade.
BN merged the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway (the Frisco) in 1980. At the end of 1981 BN absorbed the Colorado & Southern, which had been a CB&Q subsidiary, and transferred C&S’s Denver-Texline route to the Fort Worth & Denver, a C&S subsidiary. On Jan. 1, 1983, FW&D was also merged into BN.
BN developed into the nation’s top coal-hauler because of the development of the coalfields in the Powder River Basin of eastern Wyoming. It slimmed down by spinning off several large chunks of its network, including strategic segments of the former Northern Pacific main line.
Burlington Northern’s ex-Great Northern line in 1980. Reg Hearn photo
Merger mania
Meanwhile, BN’s neighbor to the south, Union Pacific, was expanding, acquiring Western Pacific, Missouri Pacific, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, and partial ownership of Chicago & North Western. By 1990 UP was almost as big as BN.
The proposed Southern Pacific-Santa Fe merger would have created a three-railroad situation between the Midwest and the Pacific — SPSF across the south, Union Pacific across the middle, and BN across the north. After the ICC ruled against SP-Santa Fe, the Denver & Rio Grande Western acquired SP, leaving Santa Fe on its own.
Gradually the western railroad situation shook out and settled down. In June 1994, after some months of denying rumors of impending merger, Santa Fe and Burlington Northern announced their intention to merge — BN would buy Santa Fe. The deal was consummated in 1995, creating the Burlington Northern Santa Fe. The name officially became BNSF Railway Co. in 2005.
