The Northern roads were quite proud of their passenger service, and kept the equipment well maintained and the service well run. Alas, Amtrak was not kind to BN passenger runs. The North Coast Limited was cut, only to be restored as a Twin Cities - Seattle run, then later a through Chicago - Seattle run using Milwaukee Road East of Twin Cities. The secondary trains between Seattle & Chicago on both the ex - GN & NP, The Western Star & The Mainstreeter, were cut, as was the International between Seattle & Vancouver, B.C. ( This run would also later be restored by Amtrak. ) I also believe the Portland sections of the Empire Builder & NCL on the ex - SP & S were cut, as were several ex - CB & Q trains. As drastic as this may sound, it was still better than pro - passenger U.P., which lost all its' passenger runs save the Denver to Salt Lake City portion of the SFZ.
Regarding BN " patch jobs " on locomotives, they really didn't patch them at all; at least not in the way EwePee did with Espee diesels. BN crews did carefully remove the old engine numbers, then apply new numbers on the existing paint schemes in a very neat & orderly manner. No god - awful yellow patches here; the biggest change was the removal of old logos as I mentioned before. Many engines would run in their old colors for 5 years or more, and RS - 3 # 4064 was the last re - painted, in August of 1977. Regarding the merger delay, I believe it was caused by a court case brought by one of the labor unions. M - Day was originally planned for April 8(?), 1968; I have a BN timetable with this date.