During 1970 the Commonwealth Railways nominated 34 cars as joint stock for accounting purposes. The cost of maintaining the Indian Pacific was divided between the Commonwealth Railways (45%), South Australian Railways (10%), New South Wales Railways (28.5%) and the Western Australian Railways (16.5%).
The cars involved were:
HGM 202, HGM 203, HGM 204, ER 209, ER 210, ER 211, BRJ 212, BRJ 214, BRJ 215, BRJ 216, BRJ 217, BRJ 218, CDF 228, CDF 229, DF 234, DF 235, AFC 236, AFC 237, AFC 239, ARJ 240, ARJ 241, ARM 251, ARM 252, ARM 253, HM 257, HM 258, HM 259, ARL 261, ARL 262, ARL 263, DF 264, CDF 266, BRJ 270, ARJ 273.
This provided for two sets and one spare car of each type. A small blue plate, lettered Indian Pacific Car, was affixed to the right hand end car.
Between 1974 and 1977 the Commonwealth Railways and Australian National Railways renumbered 58 cars which were designated joint stock for the purposes of debiting the other operating railways. The chosen cars had the first digit changed to "9" from "1", "2" or "3" except for HGM 316 and HGM 319 which were renumbered as "900" and "901" because BRJ 216 and BRJ 219 were also renumbered. Despite the renumbering, it was regular practice to use the 900 series cars on other than Indian Pacific services as well as a high proportion of the non 900 series cars on the Indian Pacific.
