Were there outside rules for Logging Railroads ?

Did logging railroads of years gone by have outside (State or Federal) rules with which they had to operate under or was it pretty much that "anything goes" providing that it was ok'd by the company's railroad chief operating foreman ?

I would assume that most logging railroads being privateley owned would have more than likley operated on an as is operation sents they would have rerouted track more frequentley to areas closer to where ever the jobs were in the woods. I don't think there was such a thing as the FRA till later on close to maybe the early 1900's. The movement of these railroads as for building and so forth might have been a job for the Forestrey Department to regulate where the railroad could go as they would have told the logging and paper industrys where and what trees they could harvest. Beside most cars used on the logging lines would not have been equiped with air brakes or any brakes for that matter depending on which era your looking into and what they had for equipment as most of there cars would have been home made and far from being safe to use in intrerchange service.

I'm only guessing as its 6 months to late to ask my grandmother this question as she worked for the Canadian government in the Forestery Department in the province of Ontario where there were about 12 logging railroads where she lived.

I'm not sure about in the past but a modern logging railroad(ie. Western Forest Products' railway on northern Vancouver Island) operates under the same operating rules as a class 1 railroad(CROR, etc.).