The Burlington Route purchased ten USRA 0-6-0s, numbered 500 through 509, during World War I and designated them class G-5. They were used in light switching service, where there was a further need for 15 after the end of the war. Those were called G-5a and got the numbers 510 to 524. Since the company was no longer bound by the standard specifications of the USRA, some adjustments were made to better adapt the locomotives to their own locomotives. They got other tenders and headlights.

In 1930, the Burlington Route got eight Northerns from Baldwin, which they designated class O-5. While the first six were designed to burn lignite, the last two had changes in the firebox to burn bituminous coal. One got a special ashpan to mount a trailing truck booster. They had Timken roller bearings only on the carrying axles. There where occurrences when a single O-5 hauled 82 mail cars.

Between 1936 and 1940, they built 26 more in their own shops in West Burlington. These had roller bearings on all axles of the locomotive and tender and other improvements. They were now called class O-5a, as were some of the 1930 locomotives which were rebuilt to the same standard. The last batch that got Boxpok drivers was called O-5b.

Later a total of six O-5a and O-5b were rebuilt to oil-burners. Here a renaming took place, so that all oil-burners became O-5b and even the coal-burning O-5b became O-5a. Today four O-5 are surviving, of which none is operational.