Merch, anyone? okieprint.com/SPR/shop/home

In regards to the BNSF Blue Smurf, there's currently one in operation number 2042. It's currently located on the BNSF race track in Illinois, specifically Eola yard.

My guess on the long hood swaps, I believe comes down to the famous GE turbos and their tendency fail and shoot flames. I believe it stands within reason that a couple times the damage was too catastrophic to just live with so they found a locomotive about to go to the scrapper and just swapped it on.

Great video! One intentional oddball that gets forgotten is BNSF 7687, another experiment H3 motor with the lower nose area being orange instead of black.

I think BNSF making a steam locomotive would count as an oddball locomotive.

I’ve seen some oddball NS locomotives. The 9528 has a old paint job and it’s engine hood has the new logo, the 9262 has the old logo on one side and the new logo on the other, and the 9954 has the new paint job, but still it’s engine hood has the old loco. It was swapped due to probably a fire.

Dude, the old vomit colors were easily the best. I don't get why everyone hates on it lol I love this video, I keep my eyes on the line for these!!

The EX-GMTX smurfs were iconic👍

Just FYI, the Golden Swoosh was actually the second BNSF motor to receive the swoosh scheme. The first was 7687 and it wears a black swoosh outlined in gold. 7701 was the third and final test unit for the swoosh scheme which ultimately led to BNSF applying the black swoosh on all new orders of locomotives. So yes 7695 is for sure a one-of-a-kind.

Also in 2005, Burlington Northern Santa Fe changed its name to BNSF Railway, wholly owned by Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett)--there is no BNSF stock.

5:12 wow! Those are kinda neat though. Kind of an apocalyptic in a cool creative way? I don’t know. It’s just so weird and unique and I love it.

So glad you covered just about every odd ball unit from BNSF’s history! That’s one reason why they’re a favorite of mine after all. I actually didn’t know the swoosh logo was original gold like that, because I used to think it was a possible paint mistake. Glad I’m wrong there. The franken units, I’m guessing had wreck damage to result in their hoods swapped, but I can’t tell. I don’t blame them for trying out that Vomitbonnet livery, but the bonnet logo just doesn’t mesh well with executive colors too well. I really like the great pumpkin scheme, with the classic BNSF cross logo in red letters. Not sure if they plan to rebuild that unit, but I just hope we see it operate again soon. I also like the H1s with H3 styled noses, the swoosh logo just happens to blend well with the rest of H1. Did you know there a few old ATSF yellowbonnets that had big yellow BNSF logos on them? They still had their ATSF styled paint, but with a modified yellow BNSF on the front and sides. I’ve seen a few pictures of them, but I never see anyone discuss them.

Fun fact about the Great Pumpkin: It actually wears two separate paint schemes. One on each side. One has a solid one and the other side has double lines.

wow they look so good on trains

Great video. I went through all of my BNSF shots, all 3 of them to see if any were on the list. Technically 2, KCS (now CPKFC) bought a dash 9 and patched it.

BNSF conductor here from the Chicago division, yes there are some still in rotation. I was just on BNSF 2042 not even a month ago in Eola yard in Aurora,Illinois. That locomotive is used as a switcher between Eola and Cicero yards.

Let’s not bring up 1050 as I’ve missed it lead 2 times, and missed it trailing too

I've caught BNSF 7695 a couple of times and only 2 times has it been leading! It got the horn swapped with a K3LA but still an amazing engine!

2 rarer oddities were BNSF 168 and 169. They are GP60s built for the Texas-Mexican railway, but spent time on the Vermont Railway System after Tex-Mex got bought by KCS. 168 wore VRS red while 169 wore Tex-Mex green. 168 is supposedly still somewhere out there in VRS red, albeit renumbered to 198. 169 got wrecked, repaired, renumbered to 199, and repainted (twice, once after being heavily graffitied).

Great video! Just found this in my recommended now. I just so happened to make an episode of 965 and 1063 for my locomotive documentary series, Remarkable Engines. 4729 was also mentioned by another famous youtuber named Hyce in his diesel locomotives 101 video, where he called it the war pumpkin.

I was able to catch 7695 one year on National Train Day at Fullerton. But those photos have sadly been lost to time

In one of your videos you talked about EMD SD 38s and 40s. In southwest Pennsylvania there is the Cumberland coal mine. They operate a private railroad with three locomotives and 47 hopper card. The track is approximately 17 miles long and runs from the prep site at the mine to the barge loading dock. They have two SD 38-2 locomotives and one SD 40-2.

My dad happened to stumble into the golden swoosh just outside of Bakersfield CA a few months ago. Edit: 5441 is also a H1/H2 Frankenstein

4729 was in a wreck sometime ago. In the late 90s it looked like a bnsf H1 scheme paint with no lettering.

BNSF definitely has some cool paint schemes. that's what makes them fun. The smurf ones are pretty awesome.

The livery at 3:54 is pretty sharp. It's simple and eye catching. Most BNSF liveries are too complex with the pinstripes and all. The locomotive already has a complex structure so a complex paint scheme is just too much.

I grew up seeing the cascade green. Saw them slowly lose out to the new orange ones. The green was the forever classic to me

A couple of the smurfs used to worj at Relco in Albia, Iowa. Not sure if they are still there or not.

@05:02 I suspect what happened considering these are G.E. loco's is that they caught on fire and and the fires were so bad that the sheet metal was badly ruined and long hoods were removed from other locomotives to place on these two units. Please observe the burnt area on #4729 underneath the radiators.

great train video

4729 was involved in a wreck in Bellemont, it was repaired with another D9 1101 but 1101 was repainted into h2

Epic! I’ve never seen any oddballs yet but I’m still looking!

The frakenengines that seem to have middle sections of their long hoods replaced with mismatching sections are all GE Dash 9s. I'd give it 95%+ odds they blew out their turbos spectacularly and the portion of the long hoods got burnt out, rather than any wrecks somehow only damaging the centers of the locomotives.

Your videos are outstanding for a bunch of reasons. Pace, music. Top drawer!

Thanks for this video. I found it helpful since I’m choosing BNSF to lead my fictional RR.

Back in approximately 2004 me and a electrician were told to do a daily inspection on a Santa Fe dash 8. When we got there we looked at it , I told him I’m not going to work on it. It was number 666. We told our foreman he had someone else do it. Later we learned they changed the numbers on the locomotive. Just saying it was kinda spooky to a couple of Christian railroaders✝️

I actually saw one of the Frankenstein units leading a westbound mixed freight train through McCartys New Mexico on Sunday

I was told by shop workers that the engine compartment section of the long hood on those GEs were swapped out due to fire damage caused by some sort of exhaust failure involving the turbo and some oil. Guess it's quite common with hi horsepower GE prime movers. Hope this helps 😊

0:20 BNSF 777. Its the Unstoppable BNSF lol

Very interesting indeed! Thanks a lot for sharing. Good luck in catching your wanted oddballs out on the main.

i dont know if this counts, but during the 80's, Southern Pacific and Santa Fe were planning to merge. they developed a new paint scheme nicknamed Kodachrome which looks really nice. Of course eventually SP would be consolidated into Union Pacific instead of ATSF. nevertheless, they're certainly oddballs locos since Santa Fe would later be merged with Burlington Northern

Liquid gold voice: vi-de-yuh! Very enjoyable to watch

We should all call that one with the CR door the BN quality unit 😂

Great Videa! I'm furly sure that both FrankenLocos had engine room fires that necessitated a new engine hood assembly from the nearest donor "parts" locos! Thanks agin' fer the great collection!

Have never seen the BNSF Golden Swoosh Units. 🤔👍

I kinda wish the golden swoosh had stuck to be honest, I think it's the perfect mix of an evolution of BNSF's image but also not being totally different, but maybe that's just me.

I’ve seen a BNSF Smurfs in Newton, Kansas

AWESOME!!! Thank you for sharing.

I live near Hwy 36. I see many of these paint schemes on BNSF locomotives. I wondered about the mismatch.

I remember in the very early 2000s seeing a BNSF locomotive that was all silver except for the big red BNSF letters on the side.

Caught 4729 in Topeka fresh out of the shop. Didn’t realize how new at the time.

That was really cool, I learned a lot, Thanks! (Dave).

965 looks AMAZING

The Wereck that involved 965 was in Roswell,NM in 2015.

Smurf: should be at least 5 left, I know of three in a “dead line” and two out and about, it’s possible there are more running but I think there are 5-6 unpainted. “Frankinbonnets”: burned from turbos most likely or an issue with actual items of doors, exhaust piping or some along that matter.

Very nice!

Nice video, some interesting schemes from BNSF

5:27 it's quite possible they caught fire since they are GE products and they are known for occasionally catching on fire

3:45 ngl it looks actually dope

I am living in Fresno where I live in a house by a railroad. Every time I see BNSF but I saw one BNSF carrying a KCS oddball. I thought they were restored.

Well I scanned a few replies and I'm really confused that anyone would mistake the 4014 for a BNSF locomotive. If it really was all numbered up for BNSF, it truly WOULD be an Oddball Loco!!

3:45 I believe it was involved in the Kismet Train Collision

4729 had an engine fire and the long hood was replaced with a hood of a warbonnet also some bnsf enployees call it the warpumpkin

Thanks for sharing!

The 2 ge with the odd ball long hoods most likely had a major engine bay fire and the car body they have now was probably off locomotives that were in major accidents. Or had broken frames.

I have seen the last one at the calwa yard in California. But it was numbered 5441 and it was leading a train.

Rhe BNSF 1063 Crashes and Wreck with 3 Ferromex on April 29 2015, I'm Caught The BNSF 4467 with front logo H3 ago August 2021 Great Video!

965 is here in Alliance Nebraska, its weird seeing this video and seeing it in person in the diesel shops mixed with aces and gevos

4:16 I caught 1113 back in June! And Also 1050 twice

3:59 fun fact: 1065 and 1063 were both involved in train collisions, but 1065 was completely repainted :(

Hopefully the Owner (Warren Buffet) of the BNSF Railroad never gets an opportunity to design the next color scheme of New BNSF Units. 😬👍

As far as Smurf units go, Im not 100% sure if it's still there or not, but I've noted one Smurf unit often seen in Willmar, MN yard shops each time I visited.

With the H1's I've seen a few on the mainline. I even saw 1050 2nd out (the H1 with the gold BNSF letters)

4:23 You:Don't talk about the Bonnett patch.

This is awesome!

Saw "smurf" #2042 at the BNSF Eola Yard outside of Aurora Illinois

2043 is just a quick patch of an EMD paint job to quickly press it into service.

I saw the golden swoosh just off the 58 in Tehachapi last week!

My boyfriend works for BNSF and he gets to move power from time to time. Not sure if he got to move any of these. Thank you for sharing.

I find ir hilarious how some "railroaders" find the terms "Smurf", "Fakebonnet", "Vomitbonnet", and "Frankenbonnet" offensive and that "railroaders don't use those terms".

afik bnsf 4729 had an engine fire. so they used the long hood from a war bomet that (i think) was crashed at one point.

Also alongside 1050 is BNSF 7816 which has a H2 lettering on the long hood

Was at the BNSF Eola Yard in Aurora Illinois about a month and a half ago when I saw BNSF #2042 a "smurf" unit sitting outside the office on what the turntable. I'd attach the picture but I'm not sure I can.

i’ve only seen one of these oddballs so i’ll keep my eyes open

A small oddball. BNSF 4560 had a Conrail door until it got painted over or something.

the vomitbonnet was BNSF's best scheme in my opinion.

There is a smurf stored at Newton Kansas. Has been there a couple of years. Don't have the road # at this time.

UPDATE: 9647 and 4331 are NOT in Service it is now in Deadline Storage.

my friend saw 1063 about 12 days ago, on the colorado springs subdivision heading to pueblo from denver

I saw 1113 trailing on a Z train with a GECX dash 9.

And I also caught BNSF #5441, one of the "Frankenbonnets".

Imagine cowl unit versions of the SD60MAC’s & SD70MAC’s. They would be the SDF60MAC & the SDF70MAC. I think EMD should make these locomotives.

There is a very forgotton BNSF GP60 unit with the Vermont Railway paint scheme numbered 198. I believe it is still in service with its red and white paint scheme.

Had they done the War Bonnet in BN Green in place of the red, Santa Fe Yellow or White for the stripe and Santa Fe silver for the long hood that would have looked pretty good. Side note, caught a Smurf a few years ago, think I was around Illinois when I saw it but cant remember exactly where.

2:23 I saw one a few days ago! They cleaned the bottom of it and it was silver! It’s 7697 tho

When Amtrak started up SantaFe found itself with all those Warbonnets, and no passengers to pull. So they started experimenting. Wound up with several variations till they tried Yellowbonnet on blue. That one stuck. Wound up on everything till Haverty decided to bring back the red Warbonnet for the new "Superfleet".

To me suprisingly laziness makes sense. Instead of painting the Smurfs orange and green, just slap a BNSF decal and numbers. Those units are very old and probably soon will be retired, so why waste paint and manpower on equipment that might be retired and scrapped soon. Trucking companies do this all the time...

I have seen BNSF 1058 park in a siding in NM

at 4:10+ you mention 965, 1065 ans 1113 -but pic shows 1063 -which is correct? thank you

Hyce coincidentally worked on a Frankenbonnet if I remember correctly.