Burlington Northern Railroad

The Burlington Northern Railroad was an American Class I railroad formed on March 2, 1970 through the merger of the Great Northern Railway, the Northern Pacific Railway, the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway, and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. Over its twenty-six years of independent operation its headquarters moved from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington, in 1981 and then to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1988. The company ceased independent operation on December 31, 1996, when it acquired the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway, later renamed BNSF Railway and eventually purchased by Berkshire Hathaway in 2009.