When the long-anticipated “Hill Lines” merger finally created the Burlington Northern on March 2, 1970, it was time not to mourn the loss of a favorite, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, but to embrace and record the details of the changeover. I had been through this six years before, when the Norfolk & Western leased my beloved Wabash, and had decided that since I couldn’t do anything about it, I might as well roll with the merger punches. I would go through the process again two years after the BN with the melding of the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio and the Illinois Central.
So as the old, familiar horses in the gray, silver, red, or black of the Burlington Route stared at a Cascade green future, I was making increasingly frequent visits from my central Illinois home up to Galesburg, Chicago, and other nearby busy CB&Q points.
Each new or bigger merger-created railroad in the 1960s and ’70s tackled its locomotive renumbering and repainting with a different philosophy and at a unique pace, depending on its spending philosophy and motive-power needs. BN quickly plunged into its planned renumbering, and did so neatly, but was slower at full repainting. It would not be until September 1977 when BN officially rolled out the last of its 1709 inherited diesels in Cascade green, ex-Spokane, Portland & Seattle Alco RS3 4064, at Spokane, Wash.
Meantime, eight weeks after the merger, while we could see what was happening on the old “Q,” what about the diesels of BN’s two “northerns” — Great Northern’s green-and-orange fleet and Northern Pacific’s green, and yellow-and-black, brothers? When a Colorado friend, the late Ken Crist, traveled east for a Midwestern visit, and I had a week’s vacation due, he and I quickly put together a weeklong rough itinerary to go “up north” and see for ourselves. What we wound up doing was more on the order of having a last look at the GN and NP than getting a first look at the BN.
We didn’t even ride the BN to get there. We could have, but our best schedule put us out of my hometown, Springfield, Ill., in the afternoon, on GM&O’s Limited, which arrived in Chicago Union Station at 9:30. The overnight former Burlington Black Hawk had been discontinued, so our only choice as a connection was Milwaukee Road’s Pioneer Limited, which left CUS at 10:30 p.m., an hour after the sleeping car was open to board.
Remember the Rail Travel Card? My notebook indicates that I charged mine $59.10 for Ken’s and my train tickets on GM&O and Milwaukee, and I paid an extra $14.75 in cash for a roomette on the Pioneer. Although this was a pleasure trip, I kept expense notes because, with credit cards involved, it was easier for one of us to pay for both when using the cards (I almost said “plastic,” but remember, the RTC was cardboard!). Ken bought dinner for us on the GM&O, $9.25 on his RTC plus a $1.50 cash tip. Ya gotta love those 1970 prices!
Once again in the Twin Cities
Fresh and ready to tackle some of the “Northern” in BN, we arrived in St. Paul Union Depot on the morning of May 10, and rented a car that would be a $63.77 charge on Ken’s Hertz credit card for two and a half days of touring. (He would put the $38.76 bill for our two-night hotel room at the St. Paul Holiday Inn on his Master Card, and my notes show I paid cash for one Holiday Inn dinner for both of us — $10.28.)
We had both “done the Twin Cities,” diesel-wise, two and three years previous and so knew where we were going. BN’s predecessors had four major engine locations we targeted: CB&Q’s Dayton’s Bluff in St. Paul; NP’s Mississippi Street in St. Paul and Northtown in Minneapolis; and GN’s Minneapolis Junction north of downtown (where Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 261 is housed today). GN’s passenger units stayed over at the SPUD roundhouse.
In general, we found that Great Northern’s EMD switchers had been renumbered, but the ranks of most other diesel types with new numbers were slim. The new carrier’s standard was to apply BN initials and the new number in white on the cab. On many models, this necessitated removing the predecessor’s emblem, a practice we found had been performed with a vengeance on the noses of GN and NP F units, where it wasn’t even necessary. We guessed that many of those emblems wound up in employees’ basements.
All told in our stay in “the Cities,” we photographed about 100 Burlington Northern locomotives, of at least two dozen models, from all three builders, but only about 35% had been renumbered. As usual, the minority Alcos are most fondly remembered: NP RS3s and RS11s, which shuttled to and from the Twin Ports of Duluth-Superior, and some leased Southern Pacific C628s.
Unusual EMDs included trios of CB&Q NW2s employed in transfer runs, and a GN NW5, one of 10 on the roster. Yard and transfer operations were not yet changed, although mixed road-unit sets had been common since before the merger. Former GN yards were still the province of green-and-orange NW2s, and black SWs still ruled at the NP spots.
Little remarked is BN’s short stint as an intercity passenger railroad — only 14 months. The former GN Badger and Gopher linking the Twin Cities and the Twin Ports still rated one of the 10 ex-GN E7As, sometimes with a boiler-equipped GP9 as trailing unit. BN’s two transcontinental trains on the former NP still employed Loewy-green F9s, but the two trains on the former GN had mixed sets—CB&Q E8s or E9s bracketing a GN passenger F3B or F7B, trios which ran through from Chicago to Havre, Mont., before being changed out for solid consists of Fs for the mountains.
Although we wanted to, and did, concentrate on the BN, we didn’t ignore its neighbors, photographing units of eight other railroads. In addition to SPUD’s 44-ton GE [see “Bumping Post,” Fall 2002 Classic Trains] and Minnesota Transfer’s switchers, we tracked down Baldwins on the old Chicago Great Western (merged into C&NW in 1968) and Minneapolis, Northfield & Southern; found Soo Line’s two Alco RS27 “Dolly Sisters” (as they were later nicknamed); and shot Rock Island Geeps, Milwaukee Road Baldwins, and a pair of its yellow FP45s on a freight, plus a C&NW U30C.
At the Twin Ports . . . what merger?
By Tuesday midday, it was time to move farther north. I wasn’t yet much of a flyer, but the smart way to save some time was to take to the air for the short jaunt to Duluth. We did this on a North Central Convair 580 for the magnificent sum of $37.80 on Ken’s BankAmeriCard.
At the Twin Ports, we found a different BN scene — not much had changed at all. Of the 65 or so BN-family diesels we photographed around Duluth-Superior in just over two days, only 19 had been renumbered and only one, SD9 6101, was repainted Cascade green. Most of the renumbered Burlington Northern locomotives were ex-GN or NP Fs, in on road freights from the Twin Cities or Grand Forks, N.D.
As in the Cities, terminals hadn’t changed much. The local yard jobs and ore-dock pullers remained the province of the GN SD9s, plus some NP Alcos. We followed the Ashland (Wis.) Turn as it zig-zagged through the Central Avenue interlocking in southern Superior with two NP RS11s up front and a GN caboose on the rear. By the big grain elevators on the Superior waterfront, we found one of the three NP RS1s, and here and there in both Duluth and Superior were NP Alco S2 and S4 switchers, plus BN’s only S6, which we shot near the Missabe Road ore dock in Duluth.
The active roundhouse was the former GN’s in Superior, and nearby was the home yard of Lake Superior Terminal & Transfer, the jointly owned switching road whose NW2s wore GN green and orange. We gave about equal time to non-BN roads in the Twin Ports, going out to Proctor on the Missabe and to West Duluth on the Duluth, Winnipeg & Pacific. We also found various Soo and Milwaukee units, plus a red CGW SD40 on a C&NW transfer.
To Fargo via Minneapolis
With the Twin Ports under our belts, our next target was eastern North Dakota, new turf for both Ken and me, and this time we’d ride the rails — BN rails, in fact. We thought about flying — Northwest had seven flights a day from Minneapolis to Fargo, coach fare $23.10 ($6.40 more for first class) — but decided that this was, after all, a railroad trip.
Despite being deep into the immediate pre-Amtrak era of train-offs, BN still fielded 19 pairs of passenger trains systemwide, from the lofty Denver Zephyr to the lowly Havre-Great Falls (Mont.) RDC and the Oregon Trunk mixed. The old NP Duluth-Staples (Minn.) RDC connections to the North Coast Limited and Mainstreeter were gone, so we’d have to go the long way around to Fargo, via the Twin Cities on the former GN.
The Gopher, train 19, made a perfect connection to both the North Coast Limited and Empire Builder. We’d photographed the Gopher, or its twin the Badger, three or four times already: an E7 and a GP9, a baggage-RPO, and three coaches (one offering snack service). With a bus connection from Duluth, the afternoon run left from Superior’s joint GN-NP station at 5:25 and arrived in Minneapolis at 8:05 after making two stops en route.
We turned in our Budget rental car ($34.85 for the two days) in Duluth and, skipping the bus, taxied over to the Superior station. The agent, naturally, wanted to book us out of Minneapolis on the North Coast, since it left first (by 5 minutes, at 9 p.m.) and, despite a longer route (242 miles vs. 232) got to Fargo quicker than the Builder (3 hours, 53 minutes vs. 4:30). Stops were a factor — only Staples on the former NP, but four stops on the GN. Ken didn’t much care which train we took, but I’d ridden the North Coast a couple of times but never the Builder, so we were insistent. The agent obliged and booked us on the former GN train; I put our total $26.18 train fare on my Rail Travel Card.
The ride to Minneapolis was fast, the snack supper acceptable, and the connection at the GN station flawless. Once aboard the Builder, we spent most of the trip in the Great Dome lounge, upstairs in the seats as well as on the sofas in the bar below the dome. If I recall correctly, we closed up the lounge well before our 1:35 a.m. arrival in Fargo and adjournment by taxi to the local Holiday Inn ($19.57 for the night, on Ken’s Gulf Oil card).
Dakota drizzle
The weather nailed us a bit in North Dakota, with cloudy skies and some drizzle replacing the sun of eastern Minnesota. Most of the Fargo-area’s activity was out at Dilworth, Minn., east of Fargo’s twin city of Moorhead, Minn. Dilworth was the old NP facility (and is expanded under today’s BNSF), and we found a variety of power: more mixed sets of GN and NP Fs; another NW5; a lone Cascade green ex-NP GP9, 1760, its bell intact on the roof — which, with Cascade green F9A 830, bracketed NP black-and yellow F9B 831; and a couple of NP Alco S2s plus RS1 802. We watched the westbound Western Star make its Fargo station stop (at the GN site where Amtrak’s Empire Builder calls today), and dropped by Moorhead tower, where the GN and NP main lines crossed. Moorhead yielded a one-car local freight behind a GN GP7 and a caboose hop with GN 905, one of its 16 1350 h.p. GP9M 1958-59 rebuilds (with FT components).
Still under gray skies, we drove north to Grand Forks for the night (the motel was $11.85, in cash). The old GN roundhouse was full of Burlington Northern locomotives, and so were the ready tracks outside. Among the gems we saw were two NW5s and several Fs. Our primary target was the next morning, the nameless Winnipeg passenger train. Formerly GN’s overnight Winnipeg Limited behind E7s from St. Paul but now just a connection to the Star at Grand Forks, it came down from Manitoba’s capital in late morning and returned in late afternoon. We were curious about nearby Crookston, Minn., and found that the train’s route skipped the town proper. Instead, the train would stop at a wye north of town, where a sign indicated a spot to board if anyone was interested. We photographed inbound No. 48 there, in the rain, behind E7 511. This, the last passenger service connecting the U.S. and Winnipeg, was just a couple of coaches, one with a snack-bar.
Back to Fargo we drove, in time to intercept the westbound Mainstreeter at Moorhead tower and at the Fargo NP station, and the Western Star in both directions. Each Star was led by an unrenumbered silver CB&Q E9. Out at Dilworth we ran into GN 400 Hustle Muscle, the first production SD45, as middle unit of an SD45 trio in three schemes (NP black, renumbered, and CB&Q green, not yet renumbered — a group which previewed BN’s “hockey stick” scheme of Cascade green, but with a wide white stripe, which turned out to be BN’s passenger livery). Another consist had SP 7012, a leased Alco C628, between a GN F and two NP 7000-series Fs. We then went out to the Fargo airport to swap rental cars, exchanging our local-return Budget car for a one-way Hertz vehicle. Our Budget car cost us $44.61, which included mileage charges to Grand Forks and back.
West, then south
Next on our itinerary was Jamestown, N.D., 95 miles west of Fargo. Yes, it’s on the BN, but it’s not a large terminal. Although we did find NP S2 705 at work (and the sun had come out!), we were there to check on the recent demise of a faraway and long-sought-after “pet” railroad: the Midland Continental. A north-south pike with a grand vision, it never amounted to more than a woebegone granger short line. Eureka! Tucked away in the former NP roundhouse at Jamestown were both of the Midland’s solid-black RS1s, dusty with disuse. BN was still switching some ex-Midland trackage around town, but the 72-mile line itself was gone.
Lost to history is exactly when Ken and I, having had good luck in the Twin Cities, Twin Ports, and North Dakota’s two Minnesota-border cities, decided how to wrap up the trip, but from Jamestown we drove south into non-BN territory. Thirty-five miles out, en route to Aberdeen, S.D., for Friday night, we did encounter a branchline local on the former NP, tying up at Edgeley, N.D., but that was it for BN until the last city of the trip.
Saturday morning, Ken put the $12.48 Aberdeen motel room on his Standard Oil card (notice how he spread the business around, to have smaller bills due at different times?), and we headed for the Milwaukee Road yard, where a big Baldwin AS616 road-switcher, 562, was working. After photographing the overbuilt Minneapolis & St. Louis brick depot, with “M&StL” engraved in stone but no longer any track in front of it, we headed on south. Not too far out of town we encountered C&NW’s triweekly northbound Huron (S.D.)-Oakes (N.D.) freight, behind two Alco RSDs.
Huron was our next objective, a must-stop 90 miles south of Aberdeen because it was home to North Western’s Alco road-switchers. An eastbound freight’s departure for Minnesota, behind four of them, was our big reward. Fifty miles farther south, a quick stop at Mitchell yielded only a Milwaukee NW2, and we had to skip Sioux Falls in order to make it to Sioux City, Iowa, in good sunlight.
That was a providential choice, for we wrapped up the trip with some final scores. The first two were mundane Milwaukee SW1200s, but at the Omaha Road yard, C&NW presented us with a Pennsy-like multi-builder mix: two EMD SD9s, an ex-Omaha EMD SW600, a pair of GE U30Cs, and a trio of Alco RS3s, including 303, one of the two (of three) surviving former Litchfield & Madison examples and the last RS3 built! As we raced the descending sun across town toward the former GN yard, we ran across an Illinois Central Paducah Geep and two GN SW1200s with Flexicoil trucks, one renumbered to BN.
But then, in the last minutes of sunlight, at BN’s former GN engine terminal, we hit the jackpot. Oh, one trio of Geeps was colorful but a bit dirty (two GN GP20s, one orange, one Big Sky blue, plus NP GP18 380), but another GP9M, renumbered to BN 1353, was better. CB&Q GP7 261 and BN 166, another ex-GN SW1200 with Flexicoils, added some spice, but the coup de grace was, like 1353, in the shadows, tucked in behind a red Q GP7, 265. This was CB&Q 168A, a scruffy “grayback” F7A and the only Burlington F unit known to survive the merger! It didn’t last much longer, either. With the sun down and camera bags full of prizes, we headed for dinner and a motel, our merger tour over.
Sunday morning, we turned in our second Fargo car at the Sioux City airport and boarded flights for home, me on an Ozark DC9 for O’Hare, with a connection to Springfield, and Ken on a Western 737, if I recall right, to Denver. This Hertz bill totaled $105, with about 480 miles at 12 cents a mile plus a $15 drop charge (and Ken and I had put a combined $18.84 worth of gas in the tank), but the trip was worth every penny.
