CSX & BNSF Heritage Units

CSX has made it clear....it ain't happening. 

 

BNSF doesn't have heritage engines but heritage hopper cars. I think they are kind of neat.....

 

Not now, but never say, "Never."

Warren Buffet lives very frugally, driving the same car for many years and living in the same modest house he's had since before he was a  billionaire.  Why would he approve something so frivolous as custom paint jobs on  BNSF locos?

 

Also, didn't Lionel take it upon themselves to make their own interpreation of what the heritage schemes would be like?

Although technically BNSF does NOT have heritage units, many of the old paint schemes still exist. You can see many of them sitting in Barstow. :-)

Per Matt Rose, BNSF CEO, in TRAINS Magazine September 2013 - "Probably not."

 

So keep asking but don't hold your breath.

Actually, Mr. Buffet doesn't really get into those very small details, i.e. he could;d care less so long as BNSF makes his holding company LOTS OF MONEY. Since the top management of BNSF no longer have to "report" to a board of directors, and "account" for every major expenditure, as other railroads do, BNSF managers can now run their railroad the "right way" without "interference". Mr. Buffet pretty much gives them a "free hand", and stays out of the micro-managing.

The way I look at it, you have to paint a locomotive anyway. BNSF's is not the simplest scheme to paint, so would it REALLY cost that much more to do some heritage schemes? You could probably negotiate the price down on a new loco order and get the cost down to next to nothing. I think most people would be happy just to have some new Warbonnets back. Besides, what is wrong with the concept of having more than one paint scheme anyway? Usually by the time a railroads gets all of theirs painted, they change it anyway, so why not just pick out three or four different schemes and make it standard procedure? Do ATSF, CB&Q, NP and GN and call it a day. If you order 100 new SD70ACes, just do 25 in each scheme. Simple as pie. If you can't have a little fun doing business, you might as well go eat a bullet.

 

You mean there's old CB&Q blackbirds and redbirds down there?

 

Rusty

I think if you work for BNSF, especially in old Santa Fe territory, you would realize and understand why the heritage units are not even being considered. They changed the name from Burlington Northen Santa Fe to simply BNSF, and came up with an entirely new logo.... its out with the old, period. There is no loyalty or compassion around here for things/ways of the past. It's about now, and the future, bottom line profits. Every quarter is record breaking volumes and profits....and that is all that matters!

There will come a time when the UP and NS heritage units will disappear under the corporate colors.

 

Rusty

       
       
Well not exactly that far back, but several different BN schemes at times.

Pity the poor KCS, they have perhaps the largest fleet of "heritage" units and nobody cares...

 

 

Rusty

Only on the Isle of Denial, Rusty.

 

I wish I could find that site I stubled across. There were several H.O. modelers in complete denial with modern diesels in original fallen flag paint (subject to changes to match the superstructure body lines). One Pennsylvania modeler even had the train phone antenna array on an F59PHi. Classic.

Plus we forget one thing, and perhaps the most important:

 

It's their railroads,(CSX and BNSF) they can do what they want.

 

Rusty

I'd love to see a new scheme based on the BN "executive"scheme. The paintwork on the engines painted in that scheme seemed to hold up well.

 

Jeff C

Rusty is right about KCS. KCS is a really nice looking paint scheme, the Southern Belle. And I did forget about one thing, there are still Southern Pacific Dash 9's in SP Grey and speed letter logo's without UP Patches.

When the Galveston RR Museum reopenned, there was a special "Amtrak" train running RT from Houston Amtrak to the ATSF Station on the Island, which the Museum is.  BNSF did send biz cars for the train.  Rumor has it that BNSF MIGHT run special trains using those units.  But then business kicked up, and last years ice bowl.

 

BNSF is too busy right now.

 

But BNSF had custom made a huge Lionel layout with buildings of the companies WB's enterprise owns.......

 

And BNSF does sponser a news program on PBS.

 

Give it time.  Sometimes "me too" can hurt you.  Or too much at one time has declining returns on those who follow too soon.

 

Plus, UP, which has the ultimate "heritage Fleet" has NO steam which can run right now!

I disagree about the UP. Now the NS has the "ultimate heritage fleet", which is much larger than the UP's diesel "fleet", plus NS has contract steam locomotives to operate ANY TIME THEY WANT.

The bonnets are not gone forever; they will be back sometime in the future. The bonnet can be combined with different colors such as this one:

 

 

Not sure if this is real or photo shopped, but the bonnet in Burlington Northern Cascade Green and silver looks good none-the-less.

 

While the railroad is now called "BNSF Railway" the parent is still the "Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation" which wholly owns the BNSF Railway. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation is itself wholly owned by Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.   

 

OK, the "UP ultimate heritage fleet" consists in 844, 3985, 4014, E units, 6036, and the passenger car fleet.  As far as diesels in pecial paint, yes, NS wins.  Plus NS "rent a steamer" program works well.  NS F units and biz cars look great also.

Well, if you are going to include the UP "business car fleet", then don't forget to include the NS "business car fleet". In my opinion, NS still "wins" the overall concept.

I would have to give the nod to NS as well, mostly because of the faithful reproduction of those fallen flag schemes.   UP's are nice but I don't care for the modern " interpretation " that they went with.  And all of the reasons that HW mentioned put NS out in front.

Hotwater, just a couple quick rebuttals to my comments.  Yes, doing 20 single units like NS did, would probably be out of the question, but if you limited the number to three or four styles, and ordered some of each every time you place an order, you would soon have enough of each scheme to make it more practical.  I am also not talking about making them show units where every little scrape has to be fixed.  I'm talking about painting them and then treating them like they do their current fleet. They also could just put the BNSF swoosh on them if they are really worried about a muddled corporate identity. You would know better than I , but I can't imagine EMD or GE throwing a 2-300 million dollar loco order away because they were haggling over a little bit of extra paint expense.  I'm not saying don't charge a little extra, just don't be greedy about it.  The more that are done and the more that are on the road makes the whole thing more workable and practical.  No, they don't have to do it, but as i said, if you can't have a little fun, why bother doing it?  Not enough corporate types behave like they actually ENJOY the business they are in and if they don't embrace the business they run, I don't want them.  That's why I like Wick Moorman.  There's a guy that enjoys being in the RAILROAD business and revels in it. I've always said that CSX acted like a company that would be just as happy making door knobs as running trains, as long as they could make the same money doing it. 

There are still a lot of freight cars in the ATSF Santa Fe and BN Burlington Northern paint schemes rolling on the rails.

 

It would be more cost effective to clean the old freight cars and put a few new decals on newly built freight cars.

 

Andrew 

Probably Photoshopped, just like these I stumbled upon while looking for something else:

 

 

 

But it does look better than the barf bonnet...

 

Rusty

Oooo I like the Burlington scheme...very nice.

I too like the Burlington scheme shown above very much.  I personally NEVER hated the paint scheme on #9647 nearly as much as everyone else seems to.

I've known for a long time now that the 2 CNW Dash 9's in CNW paint and 11 SP Dash 9's in SP grey paint with white speed lettering, does UP own these units?

Yes, those are UP units.  As long as the paint is in good shape they will stay in their original colors.  UP won't spend the money if it isn't needed and won't take them out of service long enough to do them while traffic levels stay high.

I Emailed CSX and got this responce.

 

	1-877-TellCSX
	TellCSX@csx.com
	www.csx.com /ContactUs

 

Dear Mr. Pignatelli:

 

What kind of response would you expect from a company that has a logo that looks like somebody got typewriter keys stuck together?   A little joke for those us old enough to know what a typewriter is.....

I found a new website with a bunch of BN and ATSF photos in old heritage paint schemes.

 

http://archive.trainpix.com/ATSF/INDEX.HTM

 

 

The CSX current scheme for locomotives looks like a combination of the B&O/C&O/L&N scheme, meaning that they can just add the logos and names from predecessors to locomotives as their version of the Heritage scheme.

 

Andrew

I like the [  CSX  ] "text message" logo.

 

               ..      ..

 

I think it's very contemporary given the way people communicate today.

 

CSX still operates a lot of freight cars that were never repainted from its predecessor railroads. I see lots of Chessie System, Seaboard Coast Line/Family Lines, Seaboard System and B&O hoppers in my daily travels. Now that's true heritage rolling stock.

My favorite CSX Heritage color scheme.................B&O SD70ACe!

 

My favorite BNSF Heritage color scheme.................Frisco SD70ACe!

 

 

BNSF and CSX are sitting it out. I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with Isle of Denial fantasy (or "what might have been") paint schemes.