GN 138407

Box Car

Built in May of 1967 by Pacific Car & Foundry. It is a 50' plate-C high capacity box car, with cushion underframe, ABD brakes, roller-bearings, and double plug doors. BNSF donated "identical triplets" 236407, 236660, and 375845 in June 2004.

This car series was built by Pacific Car & Foundry in 1967, and delivered in Big Sky Blue. 138660 was the first to be restored to that appearance. Click here for an historic photo of Big Sky Blue GN 138466, from the same series. Photo from the collection of Ralph Back.

Big Sky Blue was the Great Northern's last paint scheme before the Burlington Northern merger. It was introduced in the spring of 1967 by a secretly-painted train of business cars, and was to be applied to all rolling stock. However, not everything got repainted by the 1970 merger date. It is said the same design firm in St Paul designed both the GN "Big Sky Blue" and BN "Cascade Green" paint schemes. They are very similar.

After the GN merged into the Burlington Northern, the cars were repainted in the BN's "Cascade Green" colors and renumbered from 138nnn to 236nnn. The BN itself merged into the BNSF in the 1990's, but the cars were not renumbered or repainted for BNSF.

In 2004, BNSF offered MTM four of these boxcars. They had been retired early due to bad-order doors, declining need for general-purpose boxcars, and proximity to mandatory retirement age. One made it to the scrapper too quickly, so the remaining three "identical triplets" 236407 (GN 138407), 236660, and 375845 arrived in June 2004.

When they arrived they showed their 37 years of service. Click here to see 138407 when it arrived. Museum shop forces first straightened the bent door hardware so the doors worked again. The previous road numbers were readily determined - BN had painted them on the center sills. 236660 was the first to be repainted in as-delivered Great Northern "Big Sky Blue" colors. For travel to Osceola, it received the museum's "MNTX" reporting marks. 138407 was next through the paint shop. It will be an exhibit at Jackson Street, so received its historically-correct "GN" reporting mark.

Car Data

Plate C

BLT 5-67

CX 9-94 CPT 150 SB

Sources:

1. "Great Northern Equipment Pictorial Book Two - Freight Cars," by Scott R. Thompson; data p118.