Strange stuff

While some of these stories might seem far fetched, the fact is that taxes and divisions had a significant impact on the economics, and therefore how stuff got handled.
With regard to the post above about the NCO's handling of fuel oil, I would guess that it actually makes a lot of sense when you consider that under the old revenue division rules, an originating or terminating carrier got a disproportionately large piece of the revenue pie. So taking delivery of the shipment at somewhere other than the interchange point made all kinds of economic sense, since it made the NCO part of the revenue routing. Even if the fuel eventually came back as company material to the interchange point. It is quite possible that the through rate to some obscure point on the NCO was little different than to the interchange point, but by being a handling carrier the NCO got a significant part of the revenue rather than zero if they were just the consignee at the interchange point.
That is why carriers like the NWP, PE, VE, SD&AE, etc. survived so long even though they were operationally just another part of the SP. By being "seperate" carriers they increased the piece of the revenue pie accruing to the "greater SP".
Similarly taxes created strange motivations. Perhaps another reader can fill in more details or correct me, but I seem to remember SP always took delivery of equipment outside of California, and used the equipment outside of California long enough to make it legal, in order to avoid California tax.
Strange but true.
JBW