You get Uncle Peter, or you get BNSF...

Having abandoned California in 1978, after I graduated from Santa Barbara, I eventually landed in Kansas City.

Momentary Digression: Even in the late 60s, it was... You get Uncle Peter, or you get the Santa Fe, or you get The Octopus.

Nowadays, I live along the KC-Omaha-Lincoln line of the old CB&Q (now BNSF). Here, mix and match power is fairly common. Not unusual to see 1 BNSF and 1 KCS unit on a coal unit train.

Ditto older equipment. GP-30s are fairly common even now. In fact, as I write this I am realizing I've not seen any of the early high-hood SD units operating from Murray Yard in about a year.

It gets even more eclectic when I watch the old Missouri Pacific Line running the west bank of the Missouri River out of Kansas City Kansas. Espee and RG units from before the merger come by halfway regularly.

Of course, having four Class 1 systems, all with at least one yard, helps

John

A few years ago, just days after the proposed BNSF-CN merger was announced, I saw two BNSF pumpkins in CN's Toronto Don yard. It just so happened that BNSF owed CN some time. An interesting co-incidence .