John --
Thanks for reprinting that fascinating excerpt from Wagner. I confess I
never cared much for the BN color scheme or herald, but it WAS economical
and clearly better than some of the alternatives -- though perhaps not as
good as others.
Sometime in the 1960s, I believe, MR or RMC published a layout article or
trackplan for a fictional "Great Northern Pacific," whose brilliantly
designed logo was the NP's monad made up in Mischa Escher-like fashon of
two interlocking GN mountain goat heads. Since merger talks were in the air
at that time (as they usually were), I mentioned this clever concept to
Lawrence Capron, retired CB&Q vice president for traffic.
Capron came from a Northern Pacific family. He had been born in a boxcar
shed in North Dakota, where his father was a brakeman on the NP, so his
loyalties were definitely on that side. He told me that years earlier, some
of his friends (whether from the NP or from the CB&Q with similar NP
loyalties he didn't say) had devised a logo for the proposed RR that would
have been made up of the Burlington's rectangular herald next to NP's
monad, with what he called "the billy-goat hanging by his tail" from one of
the other two heralds (sorry, I can't recall from which).
No doubt the GN folks had a comparable proposal of their own.
Jonathan Harris
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