An interesting topic……
I think the CB&Q, NP and GN mechanical departments talked to each other and may have been on a more professional basis than other departments in their roads.
The GN / NP / CB&Q early 2-6-6-2s, the Ryan Coal Pusher Tenders and Roll Top Coal Space Tenders and adaptation of the NP Flat Car design and GN-inspired “Economy” Baggage Cars are some examples of cross-pollination at the time of the first merger attempt and later.
It probably would have been a struggle but I think the CB&Q was in a good place to be a leader in the Motive Power Committee. The Aurora Testing Labs was well regarded in the Railroad Industry and the Q’s Master Mechanic and Master Car Builders were also leaders in the industry.
You did not hear much in the trade press about their contemporaries.
Certainly there would have been economies in scale for pushing new designs and some power would have been specifically developed for the NP and GN lines that the Q would not necessarily need. I’m not sure that the GN, with their hardly identifiable as being on the same railroad S1 and S2 Northerns would have prevailed, but certainly the NP knew how to put together a good machine of that type so maybe the O5s would have looked more like Class A2-5 than they already did. Would the M4s have happened or would a Z Challenger usable by all three (four with the SP&S) been suitable for Southern Illinois coal as well as mountain mainline freight?
Even more interesting how would the operational patterns of the combined road have changed and affected the physical plant? Would the North Coast and Empire Builder continue to both go thru the Twin Cities or would the Burlington line to Billings been a route for a Chicago-Portland/Seattle train. I don’t know enough about the route to know if it would have been better or worse than the GN/NP route.
In studying the Newberry catalog in preparation for a future research trip it is amazing how many routes to the West and Pacific Northwest Coasts the Q surveyed and seriously considered while they were not under the ownership of Hill. They even started grading into the Rockies for a line to the West Coast.
I think the merger could have happened even earlier in 1901 when the Hill Lines got control of the CB&Q…if it weren’t for Washington wanting to break up the Harriman empire.
Charlie Vlk