Which Class I is your favorite?
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I'm going to go with BNSF. I see CSX all the time, and BNSF is a neat railroad, even if they did take over the AT&SF and BN, which were two of my favorite Class 1 (for the time, I don't know if they would still be considered Class 1's) fallen flags.
UNION PACIFIC, always and forever!
Especially after their lanslide repairs in the Cascades without government assistance... The fact that my first toy train was a Tyco Union Pacific 4-6-2 has a lot to do with it. But am I supposed to contact them for permission to use the name in a post here?
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood." Daniel Burnham
Union Pacific....Definately Union Pacific.
The Onion Pacific. I almost cry every time I think of work.
SOUTHERN PACIFIC !!!!!
Yea, I know, the SP had problems, but I grew up with the SP. From the first ten years of my life on the Coast Line at Oxnard to my time on the peninsula line at Belmont on the SP commute line to my high school years on the Modoc to my tech school years in Van Nuys on the Coast line. Followed by a short stint in south San Jose on the north end of the Coast line to a couple years on the Sunset line in Palm Springs and short stints on the Palmdale line in Palmdale and on the Overland route at Elko, Nv. and the Cascade line at Dorris, Ca.. Then Lathrop and back to Modoc before a few years in Chula Vista on the SD&AE (a SP subsidiary).
CSX, chiefly because therein lies two fallen flags to which I owe something of an allegiance - NYC and C&O. I was born in NYC country (and rode it before I knew what it was), and grew up watching the C&O run up and down the former Pere Marquette Toledo-Saginaw line.
I also cross a CSX line daily on the way to work, and watch CSX race along the former NYC Chicago line whenever I work our Utica trains.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Norfolk and Southern for my dad and i like the D&RG
Present: UP
Fallen Flags: SP, Santa Fe
Canadian Pacific Railway baby!!! The "Big Red" machine freakin' rocks!
Fav fallen flags: Milwaukee Road and Illinois Central Gulf.
All six of the current ones are pretty fine operations. From the standpoint of the transportation business, though, I'd pick CN. As a fan and something of a romantic, BNSF...
Present: BNSF. Such a variety of locomotive color schemes and they all go past my house.
Fallen Flags: Frisco and B&O. Two innovative and friendly operations.
It is a toss up between UP and BNSF for me.
Chicago Great Western is my favorite falling flag. Surprise...surprise....
CSX and it's predecessors....they have paid the bills for 43 years...and my father & grandfathers bills since 1910.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I'd pick UP and C&NW for the same reason, minus the family ancestry.
However, I have other reasons for considering these two as my favorite. When C&NW bought itself back from Northwest Industries, they put money back into the railroad and fixed it up while other railroads in the area were retrenching (not that CNW didn't do some wicked pruning of its own!). But CNW obtained the 4R loans and put them to work, bought a bunch of power in the mid-1970s, and really brought itself out of isolation.
And now UP. In spite of its meltdowns (and perhaps because of them), the railroad has been building itself up since the C&NW and SP mergers, probably to shore up the lines that its predecessors had worn out. Since the merger, net locomotive fleet size has increased by a thousand or more units, if I'm not mistaken (who else would casually order 1000 SD70s with one announcement?). Before BNSF put its third track on Cajon, UP had done it to its line from North Platte to Gibbon. And while they're adding another track to the Sunset (hundreds of miles), they're also improving other main lines (you hear rumors about a lot, but you can actually see concrete ties going down on some main lines, probably the biggest bridge project in the country near Boone, and rebuilding from natural disasters of a magnitude that's been known to bankrupt weaker railroads).
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
I a fan of BNSF. Having lived my them for 10 yrs, i never know what scheme will go by. And I have seen them all. But I have been a fan of Santa Fe for most of my life. And my first model engine was a Santa Fe.
Present: NS
Past: Conrail
Past Past: EL
Past Past Past: Erie
All the local ones here. KCS, UP, BNSF
There have been so many intersting Class I railroads with various things to give them character I don't know how anyone could have A favorite. I would probably have to say, "Which ever one that I am studying at the moment".
Union Pacific, but I really prefer C&NW
I like them all about the same.. Going back a few years, I like the Penn Central.
CONRAIL
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