I was finishing 9th grade in Southern California. Not yet a railfan, but slowly evolving. All I had ever seen was the dull gray of Espee. In the Fall of 1970 Dad moved us to Whitefish, MT. Like Dale mentioned above, suddenly the NW rails were full of variety. As we drove through Kalispell, I saw lots of GN Big Sky Blue for the first time in my life. Mixed in with some curious new bright green equipment that said Burlington Northern.

Now railroads looked cool by comparison! However, I don't recall seeing any NP or classic GN. Well, things in Montana didn't pan out, and we retreated back to SoCal in less than a year. But I would go to the library and pour through books on trains and history, learning what I could about this BN merger thing, and the predecessor roads. I did pay a bit more attention to the old Espee, but I missed the colorful trains I saw up in Montana.

The folks did make another foray to the Northwest in 1974. This time it was Bend, Oregon. By now I had a 35mm camera, and I came across the enginehouse one day. I saw a couple of SP&S RS-3 units (with the little BN on the cab) and photographed them. The photos and negs are buried away somewhere in a box in storage. Anyway, now I had an itch for the Spokane Portland & Seattle. We didn't last long in Bend, either, and went back to SoCal.

Finally, in 1999, I decided to move up to the Northwest, and return to the green BN. Of course, now there was another merger in place.... the BNSF. I was seeing less of the BN, and more of these new orange engines. As in 1970, I was more interested in the pre-merger equipment, than what was coming out of the paint shops. The BNSF did grow on me somewhat, perhaps because the scheme was a throwback to the GN orange and dark green. I liked the ATSF style circle cross herald. But when they dropped that, and went to the H3 wedge scheme, I was disappointed. And yes, I am still here, after 15 years.