The Pennsylvania (!) had two 3'-0" railroads: The Waynesburg & Washington in PA, and a railroad in OH which was called the Ohio River & Western in 1913, but also operated at (I think) a later date as the Bellaire, Zanesville & Cincinnati (known to the locals as the Bent, Zigzag & Crooked) from Bellaire to Zanesville; it never made it to Cincinnati. I always got a kick out the fact that in an Official Guide of the 1920's the two railroads occupied the same page, with the notation (Narrow Gauge) under the name of each. Across the top of the page (as on the other pages) it said
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD
The Standard Railroad of the World
In a strange way, the BZ&C lived on in spirit until at least the very late 1970's. When it was in operation (it was gone by the 1930's) the freight tariffs published by the Central Freight Association, the railroad rate bureau which published rates in that territory, provided for an arbitrary of 3 cents per 100 lbs. on all shipments originating or terminating at certain stations in Ohio, which were all stations on the BZ&C; this was evidently to cover the cost of transloading from standard-gauge to narrow-gauge boxcars at Bellaire or Zanesville. In 1935, when motor carriers were made subject to Interstate Commerce Commission jurisdiction, they were required to publish class rate tariffs just as the railroads did, naming rates on every imaginable transportable commodity from every station on a given railroad to every other station in the U. S. -- a monumental task. What the trucking companies did was form rate bureaus with territories corresponding to those of the railroads. Accordingly, the Central States Motor Freight Bureau was established by the trucking industry and simply copied the existing rail tariffs down to every period and comma, including the 3-cent arbitrary, which was probably no longer being applied even by rail, since the BZ&C had certainly ceased operation by 1937. As late as about 1979 some discussion about arbitraries had arisen in connection with the I. C. C., and I checked to see whether that arbitrary was still in the truck tariff. It was -- since 1935 no one had apparently picked up on it or challenged it. (If the I. C. C. had noticed it would certainly have required it to be eliminated.) It probably goes to show how little freight -- either by rail or truck -- was actually moving on class rates. If any truck shipments did move and pay the arbitrary it could be considered a tip of the hat to the spirit of the departed Bellaire, Zanesville & Cincinnati. Does anybody know whether there were similar charges for transloading on the D&RGW, or on the Maine two-footers, for example?