THE BURLINGTON NORTHERN RAILROAD STORY

To quote Model Railroad News, “The story is epic... plan to watch it several times...”.
To quote Railfan & Railroad, “This program, as all others Smiley has done, Contains a wealth of content requiring more than one sitting to digest fully. The maps are excellent, the corporate story-telling first rate.
This is never before seen film of a long chapter from our movie available at www.cspmovies.com "Burlington Northern Empire of the North" item number D-121 See the historic 1970 formation of Burlington Northern. See great vintage trains of Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Chicago Burlington & Quincy and the Spokane Portland & Seattle from the 50s into the 70s. We bring the history of the “James Hill Lines” and how he reshaped the northwest. See the steam to early diesel transition of these lines.
Follow the career of Chicago Burlington & Quincy’s, Ralph Budd. His early years as a design engineer made him one of the industry’s greatest innovators. He was the youngest railroad president when earlier he took charge of the GN as he was also a sharp businessman.
Follow the early passenger Ralph Budd-inspired Zephyrs, the California Zephyr plus passenger and freight trains of the CB&Q, GN and NP. Visit Chicago, Iowa, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and more locations with passenger and freight. We offer a special section of the “Inside Gateway” line jointly operated by the BN & WP.
To quote Model Railroad News, “The story is epic... plan to watch it several times...”.
To quote Railfan & Railroad, “This program, as all others Smiley has done, Contains a wealth of content requiring more than one sitting to digest fully. The maps are excellent, the corporate story-telling first rate.
FILMING CREDITS.... George Barnes, Joe Blackwell, Mark Cooper, Darrel Dewald,
Bob Finan, Bo Golson, Patrick Howat, Theodore Jocelyn
P. Wm. Landgraf, Eugene Lile, Gary McClain, Grant Oakes,
John Petros, Tim Saltzman, Joe Swenson.

[@charlessmileyvideo]

Never before seen film from our movie "BN: Empire of the North" available at www.cspmovies.com

[@TigerDominic-uh1dv]

Great Scenery 👍

[@cobraspottedwolf8791]

My great grandpa worked for great northern and then BN in great falls Montana

[@25mfd]

that's pretty cool... do you have any of his railroad stuff, like his old switchmans lantern or timetables?

[@MilePost106]

I never cared for the mergers. I miss the Northern Pacific and now the Burlington Northern, the good old days of railroading are long gone along with the jointed rails.

[@MrDgwphotos]

There's a significant error: The NP line through Montana has NOT largely been abandoned. It was leased to Montana Rail Link from 1988 to 2023.

[@railyardfilms6491]

👍

[@25mfd]

question: with the failure of the Penn Central after just TWO YEARS (wow i still can't believe that... sheesh the frickn' ink was still wet on all the paper work they signed to create the P.C.), what made the BN folks so confident that their merger would work?
also, what gave the government confidence that a BN merger would work?... i would have bet that that at that time the government would have been very hesitant to approve another rail merger so quickly after the P.C. failure

[@charlessmileyvideo]

The components of the BN merger had already been in full cooperation with each other for many, many years. The Pennsy and the NY Central were bitter enemies full of obnoxious ego and arrogance. In every way, uncooperative rivals.