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57-495: The Burlington Northern Railroad ( reporting mark BN ) was a United States–based railroad company formed from a merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1995. Its historical lineage begins in the earliest days of railroading with the chartering in 1848 of the Chicago and Aurora Railroad , a direct ancestor line of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad , which lends Burlington to

114-695: A 2-digit code indicating the vehicle's register country . The registered keeper of a vehicle is now indicated by a separate Vehicle Keeper Marking (VKM), usually the name of the owning company or an abbreviation thereof, which must be registered with the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF) and the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) and which is unique throughout Europe and parts of Asia and Northern Africa. The VKM must be between two and five letters in length and can use any of

171-861: A headquarters building, the Railroad and Bank Building in Saint Paul, Minnesota . In 1905, the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway was founded. Like the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, this new railroad was co-owned by the Great Northern and Northern Pacific and allowed both to access Portland via the Columbia River Gorge. Leaders attempted to merge another two times, in 1927 and 1955, but were unsuccessful. The four railroads were finally cleared to merge on March 2, 1970, after

228-1002: A high ridge between the American and Yuba Rivers , through Emigrant Gap . The line empties out into the California Central Valley , and then runs along the San Pablo Bay , with stops in Sacramento and Davis. It crosses the Benicia Bridge and has stops in Martinez and Richmond , where BART provides connections to Berkeley and Oakland. The trip ends in Emeryville , where Amtrak Thruway service provides connecting service to San Francisco . [REDACTED] BART :   O   Orange Line ,   R   Red Line From east to west

285-464: A hyphen. Some examples: When a vehicle is sold it will not normally be transferred to another register. The Czech railways bought large numbers of coaches from ÖBB. The number remained the same but the VKM changed from A-ÖBB to A-ČD. The UIC introduced a uniform numbering system for their members based on a 12-digit number, largely known as UIC number . The third and fourth digit of the number indicated

342-707: A legal challenge that once again went to the Supreme Court. By that time, the GN's president was John M. Budd , the NP's president was Louis W. Menk , and the CB&;Q's president was William John Quinn . Under the leadership of Budd and Menk, the newly established holding company , Burlington Northern, Inc. purchased the four railroads and merged them into the Burlington Northern Railroad. Budd became

399-623: A new company, Burlington Resources in 1988. The railroad once again relocated its headquarters in 1988, moving from Seattle to Fort Worth, Texas . On September 22, 1995, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway merged with the Burlington Northern to create the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. However, the merger was not official until December 31, 1996, when a common dispatching system

456-700: A predecessor of the CNW, from which the UP inherited it. Similarly, during the breakup of Conrail , the long-retired marks of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and New York Central Railroad (NYC) were temporarily brought back and applied to much of Conrail's fleet to signify which cars and locomotives were to go to CSX (all cars labeled NYC) and which to Norfolk Southern (all cars labeled PRR). Some of these cars still retain their temporary NYC marks. Because of its size, this list has been split into subpages based on

513-656: Is also where the train enters Utah . The Colorado River portion of the trip is informally called "moon river", as whitewater rafters pull down their pants and moon the passengers. In Utah, the train follows the southern rim of the Book Cliffs to their end near Helper . The Zephyr crosses the Wasatch Mountains , cresting at Soldier Summit before descending into the Wasatch Front to arrive at Salt Lake City . From Salt Lake City to Emeryville,

570-707: Is still owned and operated to this day by the BNSF Railway under a purchase-of-service agreement with Metra . In May 1980 when Mount St. Helens erupted , the BNR owned the land around the summit of Mount St. Helens in Washington state. In the 19th century, the United States government distributed land to railroads as a way to open up the American West and the 9,677-foot (2,950 m) peak was granted to

627-534: The North Coast Limited , Mainstreeter , Empire Builder , Western Star , Denver Zephyr , " Gopher ", and " International ", until Amtrak took over intercity passenger service in May 1971, thus becoming the last "new" Class I railroad to operate its own passenger trains. The BN also operated a commuter line inherited from the CB&Q from Aurora, Illinois to Chicago Union Station . This line

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684-932: The San Francisco Zephyr , homage to both the California Zephyr and the San Francisco Chief, between Chicago and Oakland. The Rio Grande continued to operate the Rio Grande Zephyr between Denver and Ogden. In 1983, the D&;RGW elected to join Amtrak, citing increasing losses in passenger operations. Amtrak re-routed the San Francisco Zephyr over the D&RGW's Moffat Subdivision between Denver and Salt Lake City, its original preference from 1971. The change

741-601: The Texas Eagle 's triweekly continuation from San Antonio to Los Angeles , with travel time between the termini taking approximately 51 1 ⁄ 2 hours. Amtrak claims the route as one of its most scenic, with views of the upper Colorado River valley in the Rocky Mountains , and the Sierra Nevada . The modern train is the second iteration of a train named California Zephyr ; the original train

798-809: The Humboldt River near Wells , which it loosely follows until the river's end in the Humboldt Sink near Lovelock . Here, the tracks cross the center of the Forty Mile Desert ; on the other side of this desert valley is the Truckee River , which provides the line's path to Reno and up the Sierra Nevada in California. In California, the tracks round Donner Lake , crest the Sierra Nevada at Donner Pass , and descend

855-566: The Pioneer from the Zephyr and Desert Wind at Denver in 1991, while the Desert Wind continued splitting from the Zephyr at Salt Lake City. The Pioneer and Desert Wind were both discontinued in 1997. The western terminus of the train was cut back to Emeryville station when Oakland Central station closed on August 5, 1994. The California Zephyr was re-extended to Oakland with

912-669: The TTX Company (formerly Trailer Train Company) is named for its original reporting mark of TTX. In another example, the reporting mark for state-funded Amtrak services in California is CDTX (whereas the usual Amtrak mark is AMTK) because the state transportation agency ( Caltrans ) owns the equipment used in these services. This may also apply to commuter rail, for example Metrolink in Southern California uses

969-729: The Tri-Cities , then northwest to Yakima, Washington , and crossed under the Cascade Range at Stampede Tunnel, descending to the Green River Valley at Auburn, Washington where it connected with existing NP lines from British Columbia to Portland, Oregon . The Spokane, Portland and Seattle ran southwest to the Tri-Cities, then followed the north bank of the Columbia River to Vancouver, Washington . With

1026-830: The Zephyr route loosely follows Interstate 80 , traveling along the south shore of the Great Salt Lake and across the Bonneville Salt Flats towards Nevada. After crossing into Nevada at Wendover, Utah / West Wendover, Nevada , the route passes the Toano Range , via Silver Zone Pass, across the Goshute Valley , tunnels under the Pequop Mountains and then skirts the northern edge of the Ruby Mountains . The line first reaches

1083-735: The Zephyr switches over from BNSF to Union Pacific tracks. Westbound, the train is routed over the Central Corridor for the trip through the Tunnel District . The line crosses the Continental Divide via the 6.2 mile-long Moffat Tunnel under James Peak . Leaving the Moffat Tunnel, the tracks then follow the Colorado River from Winter Park Resort to Ruby Canyon , west of Grand Junction , which

1140-743: The 1971 creation of Amtrak , three competing trains ran between Chicago and the East Bay , with bus connections to San Francisco: Railpax (renamed Amtrak in late April 1971) originally intended to revive the California Zephyr as part of its original route network, using the Burlington Northern (ex-CB&Q) east of Denver, the DRG&;W between Denver and Ogden, Utah , and the WP west of Ogden. The California Zephyr route would serve more populated areas (including Denver and Salt Lake City) than

1197-513: The 26 letters of the Latin alphabet . Diacritical marks may also be used, but they are ignored in data processing (for example, Ö is treated as though it is O ). The VKM is preceded by the code for the country (according to the alphabetical coding system described in Appendix 4 to the 1949 convention and Article 45(4) of the 1968 convention on road traffic), where the vehicle is registered and

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1254-469: The North American rail industry. Under current practice, the first letter must match the initial letter of the railroad name. As it also acts as a Standard Carrier Alpha Code , the reporting mark cannot conflict with codes in use by other nonrail carriers. Marks ending with the letter "X" are assigned to companies or individuals who own railcars, but are not operating railroads; for example,

1311-481: The Northern Pacific in 1896 as the railway endured a period of financial turmoil. Hill attempted to merge the two railways but was rebuffed by the leaders of the Northern Pacific. In 1901, the two railways teamed up to purchase nearly all shares of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, giving both a needed connection to Chicago, the nation's railroad hub. That same year, came the next attempt to merge

1368-635: The Northern Pacific. It was inherited in the 1970 merger by Burlington Northern. Following the eruption the land including the volcano was subsequently transferred in a land swap between the railroad and the United States Forest Service so the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument could be established. On November 21, 1980, the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway was acquired, giving the railroad trackage as far south as Florida . In

1425-537: The Overland Route, would run through rural communities that lacked good highway access, and could attract passengers to its scenic routes. However, since the WP had shed the last of its money-losing passenger service by terminating the California Zephyr, it was not eligible to participate in Amtrak's formation . On April 12, 1971, the WP refused to cooperate with Railpax, and the SP route between Ogden and Oakland

1482-682: The VKM BLS. Example for an "Einheitswagen" delivered in 1957: In the United Kingdom, prior to nationalisation, wagons owned by the major railways were marked with codes of two to four letters, these codes normally being the initials of the railway concerned; for example, wagons of the Great Western Railway were marked "G W"; those of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway were marked "L M S", etc. The codes were agreed between

1539-831: The Western United States. As of 2024 , a typical California Zephyr has: As with the other long-distance routes, Amtrak plans to fully replace the P42DCs with ALC-42 locomotives by 2027, and the Superliner cars with new long-distance cars by 2032. The west-bound train is Amtrak number 5 (number 6 eastbound). Upon leaving Chicago Union Station , the train travels along the Metra BNSF Railway Line , with an intermediate stop in Naperville , Illinois . After passing through Aurora, Illinois ,

1596-541: The acquiring company discontinues the name or mark of the acquired company, the discontinued mark is referred to as a "fallen flag" railway. Occasionally, long-disused marks are suddenly revived by the companies which now own them. For example, in recent years, the Union Pacific Railroad has begun to use the mark CMO on newly built covered hoppers, gondolas and five-bay coal hoppers. CMO originally belonged to Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway ,

1653-432: The acquisition of the St. Louis – San Francisco Railway the route was extended into the South Central and Southeastern United States . Transport Statistics shows BN operated 23609 miles of line and 34691 miles of track at the end of 1970; it shows 4547 SLSF miles of line not including QA&P and AT&N. At the end of 1981 BN showed 27,374 miles (44,054 km) of line and 40,041 miles (64,440 km) of track. At

1710-448: The company's first board chairman and CEO while Menk became the company's first president and COO. To further expand the Burlington Northern, a single track was constructed in 1972 into the Powder River Basin to serve various coal mines. The expansion was a source of traffic unprecedented in United States railroad history. In 1971, the first full year for the new railroad, trains carried 64,116 million revenue ton-miles of freight, by 1979

1767-472: The early 1980s two independently operated railroads, owned by Burlington Northern Inc. were absorbed into the Burlington Northern Railroad; the Colorado and Southern Railway was absorbed in 1981, followed by the Fort Worth and Denver Railway in 1982. The railroad relocated its headquarters from Saint Paul to Seattle, Washington in 1981, as well as its parent company and sister companies. All of Burlington Northern, Inc's non-rail operations were spun off to

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1824-448: The first letter of the reporting mark: A railway vehicle must be registered in the relevant state's National Vehicle Register (NVR), as part of which process it will be assigned a 12-digit European Vehicle Number (EVN). The EVN schema is essentially the same as that used by the earlier UIC numbering systems for tractive vehicles and wagons , except that it replaces the 2-digit vehicle owner's code (see § Europe 1964 to 2005 ) with

1881-408: The information with other railroads and customers. In multinational registries, a code indicating the home country may also be included. The Association of American Railroads (AAR) assigns marks to all carriers, under authority granted by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board , Transport Canada , and Mexican Government. Railinc , a subsidiary of the AAR, maintains the active reporting marks for

1938-446: The names of various merger-produced successors. Burlington Northern acquired the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway on December 31, 1996, to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (later renamed BNSF Railway ), which was owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation . That corporation was purchased in 2009 by Berkshire Hathaway , which is controlled by investor Warren Buffett . The Burlington Northern Railroad

1995-423: The opening of the Jack London Square station on May 12, 1995. However, this required a complicated reverse move along street running tracks to reach the wye at West Oakland. The train was cut back again to Emeryville on October 26, 1997. Service between Reno and Denver was suspended for about a month in April 2020, as part of a round of service reduction in response to the coronavirus pandemic . Frequency

2052-444: The owner of a reporting mark is taken over by another company, the old mark becomes the property of the new company. For example, when the Union Pacific Railroad (mark UP) acquired the Chicago and North Western Railway (mark CNW) in 1995, it retained the CNW mark rather than immediately repaint all acquired equipment. Some companies own several marks that are used to identify different classes of cars, such as boxcars or gondolas. If

2109-405: The owner, or more precisely the keeper of the vehicle. Thus each UIC member got a two-digit owner code . With the introduction of national vehicle registers this code became a country code. Some vehicles had to be renumbered as a consequence. The Swiss company BLS Lötschbergbahn had the owner code 63. When their vehicles were registered, they got numbers with the country code 85 for Switzerland and

2166-443: The railroads with the establishment of the Northern Securities Company , a trust that controlled all three, with Hill serving as president. The company was sued in 1902 under the Sherman Antitrust Act and in 1904 the Justice Department won in the Supreme Court ruling Northern Securities Co. v. United States . Although the ruling forced the three companies to be operated independently, they were still closely linked, even sharing

2223-425: The railways and registered with the Ministry of Railways , Government of India . California Zephyr The California Zephyr is a long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area (at Emeryville ), via Omaha , Denver , Salt Lake City , and Reno . At 2,438 miles (3,924 km), it is Amtrak's longest daily route, and second-longest overall after

2280-444: The railways and registered with the Railway Clearing House . In India, wagons owned by the Indian Railways are marked with codes of two to four letters, these codes normally being the initials of the railway divisions concerned along with the Hindi abbreviation; for example, trains of the Western Railway zone are marked "WR" and "प रे"; those of the Central Railway zone are marked "CR" and "मध्य", etc. The codes are agreed between

2337-609: The reporting mark SCAX because the equipment is owned by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority —which owns the Metrolink system—even though it is operated by Amtrak. This is why the reporting mark for CSX Transportation , which is an operating railroad, is CSXT instead of CSX. Private (non-common carrier) freight car owners in Mexico were issued, up until around 1990, reporting marks ending in two X's, possibly to signify that their cars followed different regulations (such as bans on friction bearing trucks) than their American counterparts and so their viability for interchange service

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2394-406: The routes continued northwest through Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota to Grand Forks, North Dakota . From Grand Forks the routes ran west through North Dakota , Montana , and Idaho to Spokane, Washington . The former GN routed through North Dakota/Northern Montana, crossing the continental divide at Marias Pass , while the former NP line routed through the southern part of Montana (which

2451-427: The spring of 1971 and the summer of 1972, passengers traveling between Chicago and Oakland would have to travel on two different trains: the Denver Zephyr , which operated daily between Chicago and Denver, and the City of San Francisco , which operated three times a week, between Denver and the San Francisco Bay Area. Eventually, however, after several false starts, Amtrak consolidated the two trains into one, dubbed

2508-437: The time of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens the summit of the volcano that was blasted away was owned by Burlington Northern. Following the eruption, Burlington Northern agreed to a land swap with the U.S. government and exchanged its square mile (2.59 square kilometer ) of land on the mountain for national forest land elsewhere to allow for the creation of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument to preserve

2565-483: The total was 135,004 million. Most of the increase was attributed to Powder River coal from Wyoming. The Burlington Northern, along with handling freight trains, briefly operated inter-city passenger trains. The BN had started operations just a matter of weeks before the end of service of the original California Zephyr , which had been operated by the CB&Q, in conjunction with the Denver and Rio Grande Western and Western Pacific railroads, and continued to operate

2622-419: The train passes through the Illinois prairies, using the Burlington Rail Bridge to cross the Mississippi River in Burlington , Iowa . After running through southern Iowa, the Zephyr reaches the Missouri River between Council Bluffs, Iowa and Omaha , Nebraska . From Omaha, the train travels overnight through southern Nebraska and northeastern Colorado , making a morning arrival in Denver. At Denver,

2679-442: The two rail lines have been combined to use directional running . As such, the exact spot the train switches lines depends on the direction of travel. For most of the 1980s and 1990s, the California Zephyr operated in tandem with the Seattle -bound Pioneer and Los Angeles-bound Desert Wind . Since 1980, the Pioneer and Desert Wind had exchanged through coaches with the San Francisco Zephyr at Ogden. The exchange point

2736-430: The volcano and allow for its aftermath to be scientifically studied. Reporting mark In North America , the mark, which consists of an alphabetic code of two to four letters, is stenciled on each piece of equipment, along with a one- to six-digit number. This information is used to uniquely identify every such rail car or locomotive, thus allowing it to be tracked by the railroad it is traveling over, which shares

2793-416: Was chosen instead. On April 26, the D&RGW elected not to join Amtrak. The contract specified that Amtrak could later increase service, and D&RGW feared that would crowd its single-track mainline that competed with the UP's double-track route. The D&RGW chose to operate the Denver–Ogden Rio Grande Zephyr . Amtrak scrambled to piece together a Denver–Cheyenne–Ogden routing on the UP. Between

2850-423: Was established, Santa Fe's non-union dispatchers were unionized and the implementation of Santa Fe's train identification codes systemwide. On January 24, 2005, the railroad shortened its name to BNSF Railway. The Burlington Northern traversed the most northerly routes of any railroad in the western United States. These routes started at Chicago, Illinois and ran west-northwest to La Crosse, Wisconsin . From here

2907-480: Was impaired. This often resulted in five-letter reporting marks, an option not otherwise allowed by the AAR. Companies owning trailers used in trailer-on-flatcar service are assigned marks ending with the letter "Z", and the National Motor Freight Traffic Association , which maintains the list of Standard Carrier Alpha Codes, assigns marks ending in "U" to owners of intermodal containers . The standard ISO 6346 covers identifiers for intermodal containers. When

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2964-408: Was moved to Salt Lake City when the latter train became the California Zephyr. This created a massive train of 16 Superliner cars running from Chicago to Utah, easily the longest train Amtrak had operated outside of the Auto Train . Amtrak required at least four EMD F40PH locomotives to pull this behemoth over the steep grades of the Moffat subdivision. To ease the load, Amtrak began splitting

3021-401: Was privately operated and ran on a different route through Nevada and California. During fiscal year 2023, the California Zephyr carried 328,458 passengers, an increase of 13.1% over FY2022, but down from its pre- COVID-19 pandemic ridership of 410,844 in FY2019. The train had a total revenue of $ 51,950,998 in FY2016, the last year that route-specific revenue data was given. Prior to

3078-566: Was reduced to tri-weekly in October 2020, but was restored to daily service on May 24, 2021, after additional Amtrak funding was included in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 . A resurgence of the virus caused by the Omicron variant and associated staffing and equipment shortages caused Amtrak to reduce the train's service to a five days a week Tuesday through Saturday schedule from January 19 to May 23, 2022. As of June 2022, daily service had resumed. The California Zephyr uses Superliner equipment like Amtrak's other long-distance trains in

3135-494: Was scheduled for April 25, but a mudslide at Thistle, Utah , closed the line and delayed the change until July 16. With the change of route, Amtrak renamed the train as the California Zephyr . The modern California Zephyr uses mostly the same route as the original east of Winnemucca, Nevada . The train uses the route of the former City of San Francisco , along the Overland Route ( First transcontinental railroad ), between Elko, Nevada , and Sacramento. Across central Nevada,

3192-425: Was spun off to Montana Rail Link in 1987), crossing the continental divide at Mullan and Homestake Passes . At Spokane the routes split into three. The former Great Northern route ran west to Wenatchee, Washington , crossed under the Cascade Range at New Cascade Tunnel on Stevens Pass , and descended to the Puget Sound region through Everett, Washington . The former Northern Pacific turned southwest towards

3249-432: Was the product of the merger of four major railroads: the Great Northern Railway (GN), the Northern Pacific Railway (NP), the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway (SP&S) and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q). The four railroads shared a very intertwined history, due to the efforts of James J. Hill , the railroad tycoon who had founded the Great Northern Railway. Hill purchased an interest in

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