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Having just seen this thread (where was I?), I should add first that Milwaukee Road's reporting marks are/were MILW, never MR. That's a magazine for model railroaders. Why the C&NW decided to drop the UP contract and MILW pick it up is an outgrowth of geography and economics, not service and track. I would not claim it was of C&NW's poor service and poor track -- MILW's could certainly have been no better. Rather, it's like this. There were six Iowa roads meeting the UP at Council Bluffs. The UP controlled the traffic in the gateway, and five of the six Iowa roads competed for the UP's favor. The only Iowa road that could afford to be standoffish was the Burlington, which could participate in transcontinental routes without the UP by virtue of its good connections with the D&RGW in Denver and the Hill Roads in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Not surprisingly, it was the only Iowa road with its own Omaha depot, while everyone else sucked up to UP in UP's Union Depot. The Rock Island to a lesser extent could afford to ignore the UP because it had a good connection in Denver with the D&RGW. But the C&NW, CGW, Milwaukee Road, and IC all dead-ended in Omaha (the C&NW west of there was a nothing), and could afford to make the UP unhappy only if they didn't want any of its transcontinental business (and by 1965, that WAS the business). By 1965, when the UP service flipped from C&NW to Milwaukee Road, passenger service was a big loser, and everyone knew it. The UP, by virtue of its control of the freight business, dictated the terms on the passenger business and they were onerous. The C&NW decided it wasn't going to lose any more money making the UP happy. The Milwaukee Road, operating on hope, I guess, decided that maybe they could get a bigger share of the freight business by picking up the passenger contract. They didn't. (One can imagine the UP shopping the business around the Chicago headquarters of the Iowa Roads when the C&NW told them they were dropping it. Kind of like a search for suckers.) As to why the paint scheme was UP, that's because it was a UP service in a UP market and a UP marketing effort. The intrinsic passenger business between Chicago and Omaha was nothing to get excited about, and split six ways anyway! So if you're an Iowa Road, you're not losing your image by repainting into UP colors, you're GAINING image. Besides, by 1965, the Milwaukee Road didn't have much else going for it in the passenger business. One last comment: by 1965 the UP-Rock Island merger is in the thick of battle. Biggest opponent: C&NW.
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