Union Pacific Form 70
Index For This Page
This page was last updated on July 4, 2024.
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Overview
Known simply as a Form 70, the full title of these books is:
Union Pacific Railroad Company
Including Its Leased Lines
List of Agencies, Stations, Equipment, Etc.
Issued By
Accounting Department
Omaha, Nebraska
A Union Pacific Form 70 book is a small book, about 5 inches by 8 inches, with hundreds of pages. The series of books were issued regularly by UP's accounting department and contained, as the title describes, listings of agencies, stations, and equipment. There were sections with listings for locomotives and locomotive service facilities, and passenger equipment and freight equipment. The books also included listings of officials, managers, physicians, hospitals and time inspectors.
The information in these books is truly amazing, including stations, facilities, locomotives, passenger cars, freight cars, and maintenance of way equipment, which UP called Roadway equipment. And for the genealogists, the list of officers and agents will likely come in handy also.
The following description of a Form 70 comes from the introduction to the 1991 reprint of the 1946 edition.
To record what the railroad physically owned, the Accounting Department published Form 70, List of Agencies, stations, equipment, etc. This little book listed just about everything the railroad owned from locomotives to depots to passenger cars to interlocking plants. In the past, the different departments of the railroad printed lists of equipment and depots as needed. In time, the Accounting Department consolidated all of this information in the book that has been reprinted. No. 64 was issued in 1946 but these were not issued every year. The next issue, No. 65, was issued in 1951 and was the last of Form 70.
The book is divided up by the three districts of the railroad and then broken down by division. After that, each division is subdivided by stations, etc. From pages 249 to 347, the equipment is listed by locomotives, passenger cars, freight cars and a recap of equipment.
Clive Carter described the Form 70 documents in his article about engine houses of the Union Pacific System. The article was published in the Union Pacific Historical Society's magazine The Streamliner, in its Volume 14, Number 4 issue.
A primary source of data was the extensive collection of Form 70 "List of Officers, Agencies, Stations, etc.," held by the Union Pacific Railroad Museum at Omaha, which were issued annually by the Accounting Department.
Starting in 1929, Form 70 encompassed the whole of the Union Pacific System. Prior to this date, the Union Pacific Railroad, and each affiliate company, such as the Oregon, Washington Railway & Navigation (OWR&N), published their own series of Form 70s. The UPRR listed engine houses, and their size, from 1906. Other companies started later. For example, the OWR&N did not provide similar information until 1912, and even then did not quote stall size for several years, although the type of construction (brick, frame, etc.) was recorded. Annual publication ceased after 1931. Subsequent editions were released in 1942, 1943, 1946, and the last in 1951.
A partial list of contents includes:
- Officers and Departments
- Alphabetical List of Stations
- Listings of all stations on each of Union Pacific and its subsidiaries, with each subsidiary having its own section in the Form 70 book:
- Oregon Short Line
- Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation
- Los Angeles & Salt Lake
- St. Joseph & Grand Island
- Each section is divided into separate divisions of each railroad and includes information about:
- Agency stations
- Mainline stations
- Branchline stations
- Junctions, crossings and interlocking plants
- Enginehouses and turntables
- Wyes, fuel stations, water stations
- Scales, stock yards, mail cranes, ice houses
- Standard clocks, hospitals, section houses
- The last 50+ pages include listings of the railroads' equipment:
- Locomotives
- Passenger equipment
- Freight equipment
- Roadway equipment (maintenance of way)
(Read more about UP's accounting department and the ICC valuation program)
Numbered Form 70 Editions
The numbering of early editions indicate that the numbering started in 1870 with No. 1. This comes from photocopies of passenger car portions of No. 47 (1917), No. 50 (1920), No. 53 (1923) and No. 56 (1926).
Prior to the 1930 edition (No. 60, January 1, 1930), the leased lines (OSL, OWRR&N, LA&SL) each had their own Form 70 book. Jim Ehernberger recalls that the older editions were less detailed than the 1930 edition, which apparently is the first with extensive and detailed of coverage of stations and equipment.
For Oregon Short Line, the edition for January 1, 1900 was No. 2. (OSL No. 1 would have been for 1899, following UP's control of OSL in October 1898.)
Form 70-A Officers
In 1942, UP split off most of the officers from the Form 70 and made up a new smaller book designated as Form 70-A, titled as "Officers, Traffic Representatives, Attorneys, Examining Physicians, etc.". This has an expanded list of officers from all departments, but they are of less utility overall compared to the larger Form 70 books. These Form 70-A books are good for trying identify the official's initials on company telegrams.
In late 1968, the numbering of each new edition of the Form 70-A came to an end with No. 83, dated November 1, 1968. But the Form 70-A itself continued to be issued on a regular basis as a company-wide telephone directory at least until January 1975, or possibly as late as the UP-WP-MP merger in 1982.
Form 70 Listing
Early Form 70 Editions
No. 47, April 1, 1917 (Form 70)
No. 50, March 1, 1920 (Form 70)
No. 53, January 1, 1923 (Form 70)
No. 56, January 1, 1926 (Form 70)
"Complete" Form 70 Editions
(These PDF versions have been scanned and had the text recognized and are keyword searchable. All are PDF/A archival format.)
No. 60, January 1, 1930 (Form 70) (PDF; 523 pages; 139MB) (courtesy of James Ehernberger)
No. 61, January 1, 1931 (Form 70) (PDF; 522 pages; 148.1MB) (courtesy of Robert Langer)
No. 62, January 1, 1942 (Form 70) (PDF; 342 pages; 100.6MB) (courtesy of James Ehernberger)
No. 63, January 1, 1943 (Form 70) (PDF; 344 pages; 105.2MB)
No. 64, January 1, 1946 (Form 70) (PDF; 348 pages; 116.9MB) (courtesy of James Ehernberger)
No. 65, January 1, 1951 (Form 70) (PDF; 330 pages; 96MB)
(No. 65, for 1951, was the last full-sized Form 70)
Later Form 70-A Editions
No. 79, July 1, 1967 (Form 70-A)
No. 80, September 1, 1967 (Form 70-A)
No. 82, July 1, 1968 (Form 70-A)
No. 83, November 1, 1968 (Form 70-A)
Related Information
Description of Passenger Equipment, No. 1, November 1, 1910 (PDF; 12 pages; 4.1MB) (courtesy of James Ehernberger)
Description of Passenger Equipment, No. 7, January 1, 1926 (PDF; 66 pages; 25.4MB) (courtesy of James Ehernberger)
UP List of Stations, Northwestern District, 1953 -- Added a new PDF of Union Pacific Form G-23, List of Stations, Northwestern District, 1953. A small 14-page document dated October 1, 1953, showing all the stations on UP's Idaho and Oregon Division mainlines and branches. Provided courtesy of Ralph Gochnour. (PDF; 8 pages; 4.4MB)
Additional Reading
Historical Inventory Of The Union Pacific Railroad, 1946, published in April 1991 by the Intermountain Chapter, National Railway Historical Society.
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