Burlington Northern Adventures
Railroading in the Days of the Caboose
By William J. Brotherton
What Burlington Northern Adventures is about
This is a book that tells what it was like to work for the railroad in the 70s and early 80s. Back in the day when there were four and even five man crews (including the fireman) on every freight train, and each train had a caboose on the end with a rear brakeman and conductor riding in it. Whenever I sat up in the cupola of the caboose watching the terrain of the Western US go by, I was in heaven! After hiring on the Burlington Northern in Grand Forks, North Dakota in 1979, I was able to experience much of the West from the vantage point of classic locomotives like F9's and GP9's or the caboose. As a kid growing up in Peachtree Hills, just outside of Atlanta, GA my buddies and I routinely hopped Southern Railway freights into downtown Atlanta and imagined ourselves working for the railroad. In Atlanta we explored the city's magnificent railroad stations, Terminal Station and Union Station.
So, imagine my joy when I went to work for the Burlington Northern and I ended up working all across the West including the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Promoted to conductor in Alliance, Nebraska, I was the boss of the train working in that most wonderful railcar ever made – the caboose, also known as a waycar by my friends who worked for the Chicago Burlington & Quincy (CB&Q). Ultimately, BN gave me the choice between becoming a locomotive engineer or a trainmaster and like a knucklehead, I chose trainmaster. I became a trainmaster with the Colorado & Southern Railway in Denver, to work from 5 PM to 7 AM Monday through Saturday. It was a hell of a job and ultimately, I took a buyout when the Crew Consist Act was passed, and they got rid of the cabooses and the railroads went to two man crews. It would never be the same without that trusty caboose on the end of each train! This book tells the story about my adventures working across the BN system as a brakeman and conductor, and what it was like working one of the toughest jobs ever known to man – that of a trainmaster.
About Burlington Northern (Santa Fe)
Few companies can claim that they've been around for a century, much less 170-plus years. And not many have had the impact on the growth of a nation that BNSF Railway and its predecessors had. The 390 railroads that today comprise BNSF have established a great legacy for our company, which became part of the Berkshire Hathaway family in 2010.
Download a copy of History and Legacy of BNSF 
About the Author
Burlington Northern Adventures relates the personal experiences of the author, William Brotherton who went "railroading" as a brakeman, conductor and trainmaster for the Burlington Northern Railroad system during the 1979 - 1982 period. He left the railroad to become an environmental engineer and in 1994, graduated from law school and opened his own law firm. Today the Brotherton Law Firm in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex handles complex civil litigation throughout Texas. Brotherton keeps his hand in railroading by serving as the general counsel of the Museum of the American Railroad, one of the premier railroad museums in the country and a Smithsonian affiliate, located in Frisco, Texas. 159 pages.
Also available signed by the author.
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