Burlington Northern Railroad

The Burlington Northern Railroad (reporting markBN) was an American–based class 1 railroad company formed from a merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between March 2, 1970 and December 31, 1996.

Its historical lineage begins in the earliest days of railroading with the chartering in 1848 of the Chicago and Aurora Railroad, a direct ancestor line of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, which lends Burlington, from Burlington, Iowa, to the names of various merger-produced successors.

Burlington Northern acquired the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway on December 31, 1996, to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (later renamed BNSF Railway), which was owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation. That corporation was purchased in 2009 by Berkshire Hathaway, which is controlled by investor Warren Buffett.