Faded Glory

The Santa Fe "Warbonnet" livery was arguably one of the best locomotive paint scheme and possibly one of the most immediately recognizable, thanks to it being applied to many model train "starter" sets. When the Santa Fe reintroduced it to their freight locomotives in the 1980s, it was welcomed by those of us who like good-looking trains. It has been 25 years since Burlington Northern and Santa Fe merged to form BNSF, and over the years, locomotives in the "Warbonnet" have become more and more rare, as they vanish under a sea of orange and green BNSF colors.

( A Rare Survivor -- Just Barely )

There won't be many more times to spot a Warbonnet, save in some museums like the California State Railroad Museum, which has an F7A-B set (originally 35A-C, now 347C-B) in the classic colors. For several years, we had some former mainline Santa Fe 4-axle units demoted to local service working the "Little BN" job, but of late BNSF has been inflicting larger 6-axle units we call "thumpers" for the noise they make when idling overnight.