Patrick,
The same thing was true when the Q merged into the Burlington Northern except that the Q employees had an advantage in the merged RR because the Chief Mechanical Office of the merged RR was CMO Robert Taylor from the Q who later became Vice President - Mechanical. A number of the Q locomotive options carried over into early BN locomotive specifications. I had the pleasure of knowing Bob in my sales activities with the BN. Bob was among the last, if not the last, predecessor road officers working for the BN. As I recall, he retired during the mid to late 1980s.
Bill Barber
Gravois Mills, MO
Sun Dec 4, 2011 6:13 pm (PST)
The differences of opinons between the various railroads caused lots of minor problems with verious mergers. Without going back into my files, I can't tell you which was which for sure, but when Penn Central lurched into being it was discovered that one of the main components (I think NYC) had armrests on the cab seats and the other (PRR) did not. Until the differences were resolved, NYC crews would refuse to run trains unless the lead locomotive had armrests.
I've heard similar stories over the years about dynamic brakes or long hood forward units.