  the burlington northern railroad  was a united states-based railroad company formed from a merger of four major u.s. railroads. burlington northern operated between 1970 and 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 to the names of various merger-produced successors. burlington northern purchased 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 by berkshire hathaway in 2009http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091103/ap_on_bi_ge/us_berkshire_burlington_northern which is controlled by investor warren buffett. ==history== the burlington northern railroad was the product of a march 2, 1970, merger that involved four major railroads: the great northern railway, northern pacific railway, spokane, portland and seattle railway and the chicago, burlington and quincy railroad as well as a few small jointly owned subsidiaries owned by the four. the merged railroad was initially going to be called great northern pacific & burlington lines. although the four railroads shared common ownership (including the headquarters building in saint paul, minnesota) from the days of the james j. hill era, the four railroads previously had unsuccessfully attempted four mergers to unify the hill lines: 1896, 1901, 1927 and 1955. surprisingly the merger was finally approved in 1970 even though a challenge occurred in the supreme court, 
Burlington_Northern_Railroad Companies_based_in_Saint_Paul,_Minnesota Defunct_Alabama_railroads Defunct_Arkansas_railroads Defunct_California_railroads Defunct_Colorado_railroads Defunct_Florida_railroads Defunct_Idaho_railroads Defunct_Illinois_railroads Defunct_Iowa_railroads Defunct_Kansas_railroads Defunct_Kentucky_railroads Defunct_Minnesota_railroads Defunct_Mississippi_railroads Defunct_Missouri_railroads Defunct_Montana_railroads Defunct_Nebraska_railroads Defunct_New_Mexico_railroads Defunct_North_Dakota_railroads Defunct_Oklahoma_railroads Defunct_Oregon_railroads Defunct_South_Dakota_railroads Defunct_Tennessee_railroads Defunct_Texas_railroads Defunct_Washington_(state)_railroads Defunct_Wisconsin_railroads Defunct_Wyoming_railroads Economy_of_the_Midwestern_United_States Economy_of_the_Northwestern_United_States Former_Class_I_railroads_in_the_United_States Railway_companies_disestablished_in_1996 Superfund_sites_in_Minnesota