The 'critics' get 'show me pictures of your basement size layout and all 150 buildings on your layout and how you did each of them'. James Hill (founder and owner of GN) owned a lot of stock in NP as well as SP&S and Burlington. He tried on 3 occasions to merge all these railroads into one but the ICC ruled against it. The merger finally happened in 1970. The GN and NP shared the main passenger terminals in St Paul and Seattle and Burlington pulled the GN passenger cars from St Paul to Chicago. Both GN and NP owned SP&S and shared SP&S's track to bridge some cities.
I think Milwaukee was last to reach the coast and they had the most severe routes to get across the mountains. I never read much that Milwaukee was a threat to the GN railroad.
