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factorone33 — Retroactive Pairing
Published: 2008-10-08 09:58:42 +0000 UTC; Views: 456; Favourites: 19; Downloads: 7
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More selective desaturation. I figure I'll finish the series up once I run out of shots from this particular trip.This shot holds a bit of symbolism and situational irony, considering the history behind it.
In 1997, the year ATSF & BN made their merger final, BN was arguably the largest Class 1 railroad in the country, if not the continent. ATSF, while a major player, was all the way down around 7th in total size and trackage, trailing the likes of UP, NS, CSX, CN, and even SP (though SoPac was in the process of being absorbed by UP prior to the ATSF/BN merger).
After surviving an attempted (but failed) hostile takeover by the UP, ATSF finalized its merger with BN, and effectively became a top 3 class 1 railroad in less than a week's time. #7 overtook #1.
And ironically, in this shot, #7 "trails" #1. Though we all know now that they're one in the same regardless of the fact that both are pre-merger units. I don't think the yardmaster even thought about the irony when assigning these units to this consist in such a manner.
On the point of this manifest (with a huge string of tankers) are BNSF (ex-BN) SD70MAC #8180 and BNSF (ex-ATSF) C44-9W #687, northbound on the BNSF St. Joseph sub near Rushville, MO.
Canon EOS 30D
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L USM
ISO 400 @ 1/400, f/9
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Comments: 13
You know what the other irony is? Out of all the mergers the BNSF merger was the most fluent of them all with UP/SP being the worst modern merger in terms of fluidity. Talk to enough SP guys and you'll see why they hated it when UP tried to shove it down their throats.
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I don't doubt it, especially UP's penchant for being what I refer to as an "evil corporate giant", judging by their attempted hostile takeover of ATSF prior to the finalization of BN/ATSF a few months later. Some of the other things that complicated SP/UP were SP's flat-out crappy maintenance of everything in their system. I talk to UP employees who were servicing ex-SP lines in California as recently as last year, simply because the RoW was just piss-poor at merger time, and SP (which we should realize was actually D&RGW with a different name) spent practically zilch on maintaining their stuff. Just take a look at their traction (or what's left of it). UP rebuilt half of their SD40s right off the bat, and a bunch of the C44s never made it past the merger.
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Then we also have to remember how SP and Santa Fe merger failed because SP was not a very strong railroad after the 70s because like you said and like what has been documented they never took care of themselves anywhere in where it would keep them fluid. Was it bad? Yeah in the end it was because UP could not handle the huge mess through in their face.
To be very honest as a witness living in the area hardest hit by the meltdown the whole meltdown was the fault of UP for going gong hoe into the merger not planning it out looking at all of the true flaws SP had which was zillions. I would argue as many would the UP/SP merger was the reason the President, Congress, and the government passed a law making it almost impossible to merge without FRA AND Congress approval. I think the CSX/NS/Conrail fiasco did it because Conrail was not like SP, in fact, they were the strongest railroad in the entire country at the time based on their stock earnings. They could of easily swallowed SP, SF, DRGW, CNW, and let's not forget BN. They had the power, they had the stock, they had the money so why did they merge when they probably could of survived the times now? That's the real mystery I keep hearing people including myself say. Could it be because the government said this is it after we merge Conrail? This merger to me has alot of unanswered questions still because Conrail was doing fine yet when split went into total chaos because CSX and NS could not reach agreements over who got what. It was ugly but then again it was also a stark reminder of you can't get two raging bulls to agree if they hate each other anyway.
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Let's just say that I'm not a big fan of NS or CSX (at all), and UP isn't one of my favorites. I believe BNSF is probably the premier Class 1 out there, with KCS up there as well.
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Yeah but give all but CSX their props for remembering where they came from 
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Thanks for a bit of history I didn't know.
Great shot too.
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I find it interesting that those ex-BN units always seem to be cleaner than the Warbonnets... Maybe it's just the silver versus the white paint, but the ex-ATSF units just seem dingy in comparison.
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The picture also underscores the two companies' locomotive builder leanings...
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I knew I missed one more point! HA! I shall change that hence!
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