Burlington Northern Railroad - Equipment Colors and Painting

Equipment Colors and Painting

The equipment livery of the Burlington Northern traces its early history back to Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. Experimenting with EMD GP40 #629, this locomotive was painted in a green, black and white scheme that introduced the BN's lettering and logo. The green color was later known as Cascade Green due to the reflections of pine trees and nature along various routes the trains of the CB&Q traveled.

As the final approval of the merger was approaching, the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway purchased 6 EMD GP38s in February 1970, that were delivered in the official Burlington Northern paint scheme.

By the 1980s the locomotives and rolling stock had an unfortunate habit of camoflauging into the scenery and causing various accidents along railroad crossings. In late 1984, the BN commenced the High Visibility study which applied orange and black nose stripes and orange along the cab face on one locomotive followed by two new orders of locomotives: EMD SD40-2, EMD GP50, and EMD SD60 respectively. By 1987, the study did not show vast improvement of the locomotive's visibility and was dropped.

In 1989, the BN reactivated its High Visibility study which now used more white paint on the nose and cab face. The first unit, GATX Rebuild EMD GP40 #3079 emerged in April 1989 with a white cab face, end-sill stripes, and a large BN logo applied on the nose; dubbed White Face this scheme proved to be a success with only a minor change occurring in 1991 with the application of a two-inch wide separator stripe.

In October 1990, BN departed from its Cascade Green, black and white scheme on its business car and locomotive fleet. Adopting Grinstein Green (an altered version of Brunswick Green/British Racing Green and named after the president of Burlington Northern, Gerald Grinstein), Cream, and Alizarin Red. This scheme was applied to EMD F9A-2 #BN-1, EMD F9B-2 #BN-2, and EMD E9A-2 #BN-3, of the locomotive fleet and the business car fleet. In November 1993, brand new EMD SD70MAC #9401 received the Executive colors, making a departure from the standard Cascade Green, White & Black scheme. This trend continued only on the EMD SD70MAC's until BNSF #9837.

For a short time, classic BN cab units were used on the Metra commuter line.