GN "Hustle Muscle" sits outside the museum as a BNSF coal train passes.

Built in December of 1969 and having outlived two mergers so far, this Ortner woodchip gondola still rides the rails under the Great Northern banner. Wearing that fallen railroad’s Big Sky Blue... (more)

Known as “Rocky” by the Great Northern, this trademark mountain goat perched atop a rock would become the official trademark for that railroad in 1936. For much of its life Rocky would be enc... (more)

EMD's first production SD45, Great Northern "Hustle Muscle" No. 400, greets former EMD FP7 demonstrator Soo Line 2500A. The f-unit had just been restored and was being positioned for pho... (more)

GN 1196 lettered City of Spokane brings up the rear markers on Amtrak's Empire Builder as it leaves Seattle on a sunny spring evening.

Two Great Northern F’s await their next assignment at Portland, Oregon on April 11, 1969. Portland’s Union Station Tower is in the background.

Having already lost its nose herald, GN F 273-A headed south emerges from GN's tunnel under Seattle into the north end of Seattle's King Street Station. April 9, 1970, just four weeks after t... (more)

Awaiting the next passenger train to switch, GN’s EMD switcher 105 idles at St. Paul, Minn. Union Station, April 6, 1970. No. 105 was now a part of the Burlington Northern family.

Dressed in a short-lived sky-blue paint scheme, it is fitting that GN’s EMD switcher is under the big skies of Montana at Whitefish yard with Big Sky Montana ski slope in the background.

Great Northern’s 4-car Train No. 323 leaves CN and GN’s depot at Vancouver, B.C., headed for Seattle on April 10, 1969. Even though one of GN’s boiler-equipped SDP-40’s leads the train, a... (more)

No HEP (head-end power 480-v.) here in GN’s Seattle coach yard where the cars are hooked to ground steam on rainy April 9, 1970 The Big Sky Blue didn’t last long as the merger creating Burlin... (more)

During Great Northern’s “Big Sky Blue" era, eastbound Train 28 Western Star makes its station stop at Whitefish, Montana on April 9, 1969. Boiler-equipped SDP-40 322 and its two F unit m... (more)

At least the derailment at Red Eagle, Montana wasn’t bad enough to block the Empire Builder’s passage on April 8, 1969. The two derrick work trains, the western one with GP-20 2020, are at e... (more)

An EMD F45 converted into luxury lodgings sits on the grounds of the Izaak Walton Inn in Essex, Montana. The locomotive, painted in Great Northern's "Big Sky Blue" scheme actually start... (more)

GN 441, decked out in big sky blue, now serves as a luxury mountain resort deep in the northern Montana Rockies at the Izzak Walton Inn. Though this unit hasn't seen freight service in a number of... (more)