▚ The great northern-tier merger
On March 2, 1970, four railroads that had been under common financial control for decades finally became one: the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Spokane, Portland & Seattle. The result was the Burlington Northern — a green giant stretching from the Twin Cities and Chicago to the Pacific Northwest and, later, the Gulf.
▚ Coal, grain, and Cascade green
BN became a coal-hauling powerhouse once the Powder River Basin opened in the late 1970s — mile-long unit coal trains behind sets of SD40-2s in Cascade green defined the road. Grain out of the northern plains was the other half of the story.
▚ Frisco and the road to BNSF
In 1980 BN absorbed the St. Louis–San Francisco (Frisco), extending into the southeast. In 1995 it merged with the Santa Fe to form BNSF, and Cascade green slowly gave way to pumpkin orange.
▚ On this layout
BN is one of the largest rosters here in both scales — SD40-2s by the dozen, F45s, SD60s, GP50s and GP38-2s, an RS11, all in Cascade green. This is the railroad of the coal drag and the Friday-night freight.