I don't mind the Heritage schemes, but I'll never understand why they dumped the most well known paint scheme in all of railroading.
LONG LIVE THE WARBONNET!
YoHo1975 wrote: I don't mind the Heritage schemes, but I'll never understand why they dumped the most well known paint scheme in all of railroading. LONG LIVE THE WARBONNET!
I agree 100%. That was just totally ASININE!!! (Pardon the spelling.)
Dick
Texas Chief
I agree with you 100% WARBONNET!
Your friendly neighborhood CNW fan.
AGAIN:
who's Tom Dannemann and where can i see his scheme ideas?
Lord Atmo wrote: AGAIN:who's Tom Dannemann and where can i see his scheme ideas?
He is the art director of the magazine. Look in the new issue or try this link-http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=a&id=2925
I'd like to see them use the Kodachrome scheme.
Sorry No kudos. All the BNSF logos and colors --and the Great Western effort too--are no go's. They are all weak, indistinguishable, and on the level of third world airlines or class 3 railroads. They are unrecognizable at a distance, and look terrible when only slight dirty. They do not have a theme that can be expanded or merchandised or even made memorable. I used to work with designers in New York, San Francisco and the Boeing Company. (Yeah, OK they were for airliners, but the art and the science of logos and paint schemes are very very similar across all forms of transportation.) There are two railroad designs that are very distinctive, colorful and are recognized all over the world -- Santa Fe and the UP. These two timeless, handsome designs are very effective. And they have a world-wide franchise that has already been paid for. I can sit here and type all night on this subject, but I'm glad someone finally spoke up about BNSF, that tongue-tying no name, that when spoken in front of non-railfans always results in a "What did you say" response. Time to stop the amateur back-of-a-napkin at dinner design stuff. It is time that railroading got some professional design help, some communications skills and start showing class again.
agp1066 wrote: Sorry No kudos. All the BNSF logos and colors --and the Great Western effort too--are no go's. They are all weak, indistinguishable, and on the level of third world airlines or class 3 railroads. They are unrecognizable at a distance, and look terrible when only slight dirty. They do not have a theme that can be expanded or merchandised or even made memorable. I used to work with designers in New York, San Francisco and the Boeing Company. (Yeah, OK they were for airliners, but the art and the science of logos and paint schemes are very very similar across all forms of transportation.) There are two railroad designs that are very distinctive, colorful and are recognized all over the world -- Santa Fe and the UP. These two timeless, handsome designs are very effective. And they have a world-wide franchise that has already been paid for. I can sit here and type all night on this subject, but I'm glad someone finally spoke up about BNSF, that tongue-tying no name, that when spoken in front of non-railfans always results in a "What did you say" response. Time to stop the amateur back-of-a-napkin at dinner design stuff. It is time that railroading got some professional design help, some communications skills and start showing class again.
The people that need to know how to say a railroad name, the shippers, can say it just fine. Railroads are not like airlines, railroads do not need Joe Public to book a ticket off Orbitz. They need companies like Com-ed and UPS to know who they are.
An "expensive model collector"
Here we go again.
All I'm going to say this time is that I like the BNSF paint schemes and the new logo - there's nothing wrong with them, and I doubt BNSF is going to change their paint scheme just because everyone wants the warbonnet again. The warbonnet is not BNSF, it's Santa Fe - just as the Executive isn't BNSF, it's Burlington Northern.
And I highly doubt anything new that BNSF will come up with please any of you guys...
It's a railroad, for pete's sake! At least its around and BNSF's bright orange yellow and black is much better than nothing at all.
SchemerBob wrote:And I highly doubt anything new that BNSF will come up with please any of you guys...It's a railroad, for pete's sake! At least its around and BNSF's bright orange yellow and black is much better than nothing at all.
well....if they stopped dropping headlights on their ex-BN power unless they intended to paint them in orange, i'd be pleased.
and yes bright orange and black is GREAT. cmon, at least it's not ARMOUR YELLOW! blugh...
i like BNSF's paint scheme
....but KCS's revived scheme just wins on epic levels!
I like KCS and what they have done with their paint.Now BNSF is going to do whatever it wants. It could care less about history.Hell SF guys and BN guys dont get along yet. We have old Frisco guys still hating BN.
But we will use whatever logo some college kid puts out there.Same as we will ride cars the way they tell us too and follow new rules made up by people NEVER being on a train before in their life,make up for us to follow.
But Kudos to Tom I think that GW looks cool.
Yes we are on time but this is yesterdays train
My two cents worth is this: The Warbonnet scheme, even the blue and yellow scheme, gave a sense of movement and of continuity. My eye follows that contrasting border back along the side of the locomotive, and it just seems right to have that line picked up by the next unit.
When you contrast the bright red with silver, (dark with light), on something that big, my eyes are immediately drawn to that contrast. That might be just me- but the same thing applies to the Delaware and Lackawanna blue and silver paint scheme they used.
Or, look at the contrast the white striping NYC stuck on their 20th Century diesels. Same effect.
The cynic in me understands why the railroad does what it does- "paint don't pay the bills"- but the railfan in me will always consider BNSF to be the Santa Fe...
Why, I would even advocate painting frieght cars orange and sticking Pacific Fruit Express on the side. It would make me much happier than the endless sea of industrial gray, hull red, or plain ole boring black. Unfortunately... the railroads still aren't taking us seriously. Rats.
Mechanical Department "No no that's fine shove that 20 pound set all around the yard... those shoes aren't hell and a half to change..."
The Missabe Road: Safety First
Some people may be wondering where they can see this paint scheme. Two photos are in Jim Wrinn's editorial on page 4 of the February issue of Trains, and I did a little write-up with more drawings that can be seen here:http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=a&id=2925Thank you everyone for the comments. I do appreciate them whether you like the scheme or not. I figured the "bring back the Warbonnet" comments would surface yet again, but my intention was to improve what BNSF already had, not change the scheme completely, or go back to a scheme that is now defunct. Believe me, if the railroad was still the Santa Fe, I would be all for keeping the warbonnet. The changes I made are simple changes that could be considered tweaks to the existing scheme. If I were to start over from scratch, would I use orange and black? Maybe, maybe not. Since the orange has been around since the early days of BNSF, lets assume they would like to stick with that. My biggest beef with the existing scheme is the gaudy striping on the sides of the comfort cab locomotives, and the plain nose with the BNSF logo. I'm not sure what to say about the comment about using red on orange. I have no red on the scheme at all. The only thing I can think of is that you are seeing the line work of the technical drawing of the locomotive. The only colors I used were orange, black and gold.
Tom
I happen to work for that ''tongue-tying no name'' thats below the belt pal.
I'm afraid that I don't agree with Tom on this one. In the first place, the Santa Fe did not cease to exist, they merged with the Burlington-Northern. I can't for the life of me figure out why they couldn't leave the S.F. paint scheme alone. Every one in the country knows that they merged on paper. They didn't have to change the paint and logo's to prove it. The War Bonnet was an Historical Icon. LEAVE IT ALONE!!!!
nanaimo73 wrote:With having that many locomotives on the roster, would it be too costly to have two paint schemes? Perhaps the newer DC "Road Warriors", such as those used on the Transcon, could be painted in Super Fleet. The majority of the roster, the AC's, yard power, and older locomotives, would be left in orange/green.
If my memory hasn't failed me, BNSF considered having three liveries at the outset: Grinstein green and cream for coal service, the warbonnet for intermodal and the Heritage scheme for everything else. Needless to say, some pretty scrambled consists would have turned up before long. I would opine that the Heritage scheme in its various permutations was the best choice for everything since it was neither BN nor ATSF.
By the way, for legal purposes, ATSF was merged into BN and the surviving company changed its name to BNSF. Also consider that most of the top management from ATSF took over operations of the combined road.
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