The Railroad that Inherited an Active Volcano 

OMG we own Mt. St Helens When I was working MOW (track) for the BN (Burlington Northern Inc.) Mt St Helens blew up. I was in the Aurora, Illinois division office and the clerks and secretaries were all talking about the eruption. One clerk went over to a large wall map of the BN system find out were Mt. St. Helens was. Suddenly he exclaims “Oh my gosh! We own that! Are we responsible for the damages???!!” Sure enough looking at the checkerboard map grid you could see US National Forest land interlaced with railroad granted land. A legacy of the railroad land grant system several books have been written about.

We were up on the ex-GN Stevens Pass line at Skykomish that very day when we heard two loud explosions--like bombs going off. We were out of range of AM radio, but our scanners were picking up BN dispatchers reporting the event. As we drove east, we could see the ash cloud move in, so we turned back at Leavenworth, where we saw one last WB freight go by, covered in ash. BN ceased all operations shortly thereafter and we got the hell out of there. The rest, as they say, was history.

Lionel missed making a set that would be the bomb: It’s The Lionel Burlington Northern active Volcano set.

Excellent short. I love the quote "How the hell do you manage an erupting volcano?"

When I went on the tour, they never told us about BN's involvement in owning the land and being instrumental in the monument's development. All I remember them talking about was the eruption and what it did to the surrounding land and of course did to Harry Truman..

Hey everyone! This is an experiment in short-form content while I'm working on my next longer video. What do you think about this short story format?

I worked for BN in marketing in St Paul when this happened. As fo BN being responsible, the eruption was a force majeure event which could not be foreseen or prevented. Richard Bressler, mentioned in the video, was a former Atlantic Richfield executive, who's mission was to split the resources part of BN (coal, timber) from the railroad to create Burlington Resources that was later absorbed by El Paso Natural Gas. Part of the legal gymnastics included bonds issued by Northern Pacific after the panic of 1893 where in profits from the land grant holdings would be plowed back into the NP, now part of BN. Those covenants were still in effect in the mid-1980's until the bonds were bought up retired. Another problem was the land grant for the Pacific railroad began in Ashland WI and ran to Seattle. BN wanted to abandon the Ashland WI branch - mile post 0 on the land grant - which raised more legal questions that were resolved. I was on a BN business trip in the Palouse region of SE Washington the Spring following the eruption and the wheat crop broke all records for yield per acre since the ash acted like a fertilizer.

Should have got that volcano insurance.

Wow, that's really an interesting piece of railroad history!

I still remember the headline in the Minneapolis Star The headline read “Burlington Northern Disperses Holdings”. I still wish I had this copy of the paper

Holy crap I mever knew Burlington northern has volcanic activity on tracks

I really enjoy both long and short. I appreciate the exceptional quality of your content. Thanks very much for continuing to make them!

Excellent short story about Mt St Helens and the railroad!

Excellent local history.. well done 👍

right - it was one of the few bits that Weyerhaueser hadn't purchased for the timber

the best 6 mins i ever spent on a youtube video

The old picture of Harry and his bride Takes me back a minute or two Good job on the research

Very well done! And being so much into railway history, I did not know the BN owned that land. Very cool! I actually have a small, sealed, vial of ash from the volcanic eruption as my uncle was serving in the US Navy at the time and helped in rescue effrots.

interesting, well presented and well narrated. raced at P.I.R. (crewed cars ) in 78 and 83. saw it before and after.

I was confused when he said Harry Truman as I was thinking of Harry S Truman, not Harry R Truman

Truly nice to see that something bad turns into something good.

Great video man! Very interesting!

Great mini-doc! I just subscribed!

thank you for specifying the music used. Great tune

Enjoyed it very much

All of your videos are absolutely fascinating! So good. As a life long Eugenean I really appreciate these super informative videos!

Nice work

thank you for video

great video

Nice job on this and your lost park ! Hope you do more soon . Maybe a couple of the "lost"wagon roads through Oregon ?

Awesome video bro

You could have gone into more detail about how the ash affected BN's operations following the eruption. I believe BN's F-units were hardier than most locomotives (the ash was clogging intakes and causing other problems) and were pressed into service there from around the system shortly after the eruption.

Yet another great video! I never knew the BN owned that land.

My favorite railroad.

railroads and volcanos should go together well

As a fan of BN I had never heard about this. very wild.

Amen to the statement given at the end of the video from the R&R Land manager.

very interesting

Informative, Thanks

Imagine owning an active volcano

You deserve more than the 11.4K subscribers you have right now

Very interesting video! Great job as always. May I suggest more railroad-related videos like this one?

1:27 40 million acres is about double the area of my county (Austria)

Nice video, i would be very interested in a video about the pacific railroad acts, and how it all played out in all corners of the country

kinda ironic that the railroad having steam locomotives belching alot of smoke from the smoke stacks inherited a mountain that did the same thing. the story goes that living on the wrong side of the tracks is from the way the wind would blow the steam locomotive smoke into the poor side of the tracks. so we now go from the wrong side of the tracks to the wrong side of the mountain.

0:20 lightning strike

do the other western railroads own on top of other volcano's to ?

Love the PNW content.

Been enjoying your videos. Good filler content between your longer videos would help keep interest in the channel. I am just one of the few crazy people who enjoy longer content videos, 20+ mins.

I didn’t know that Mount St. Helens was owned by Burlington Northern.

If they'd immediately started construction on a massive geothermal power plant right smack in the crater, that would be the most baller move ever. Just drill a big F-U hole right down into the magma chamber for *unlimited power* "Go ahead. Make my day."

Fun Fact: The day the eruption of Mt. St Helen’s was on my birthday (May 18 1980)-(May 18 2011)-My Birthday

Some new knowledge….

Oh boy here we go again

I remember reading that they used to own the summit, always wondered the details on that one

🤘😁🤘

Mount St. Helens is probably more iconic than Burlington Northern, ironically enough.

BNSF is still a big land lord in the PNW

Ironically, if BN had built those geothermal power plants it would have extracted heat energy from the magma chamber under the volcano and could have staved off the eruption.

You've done for trains what mustard does for planes.

I love the Burlington Northern, and rue the day ot merged with the ATSF. Green, white, and black! All hail the BURLINGTON NORTHERN!

why would a railroad own the top of a mountain?

Nobody’s asking the real question: did they ever have to pay any (meaningful) property taxes on the summit?

I have to wonder about the tax breaks, if any, BN got.

Burlington northern Should have been responsible for all damages, After all it was their mountain.