I'm glad Ike posted his response on this subject. Since 2013 I have been the Archivist with the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway Archives located at the Pacific Northwest Railroad Archive at Burien, WA. We have been blessed to have a substantial amount of original SP&S records and one ledger in particular that I call the "Bible" which has copies of the ICC filings for Account 53 "Freight Train Cars" as well as passenger train cars (Account 54), work equipment (Account 57), steam locomotives (Account 51), and other locomotives (Account 52) from 1916 to 1970. In the case of the SP&S this is Form 239 so I wonder if the ICC Form 1742 that Ike provided samples of is actually the form number as used on the Southern? Anyone else have samples from other railroads?

I have attached a scan of SP&S Form 239 from December 31, 1952 and of note is that the "date of change" is unique in most cases a number simply shows 12-31-1952 and as time went on the December 31 date became more common.

As to the holdings at NARA at College Park, I have been there several times and have researched railroads from the Pacific Northwest. In the conversations I had with David Pfeifer at NARA it seems that existing records relating to equipment seem to primarily exist for railroads from the Southeastern part of the US. I'm sorry to hear that David has retired as he is a great resource.

Richard Wilkens
Archivist, SP&S Railway Historical Society