Chapter 161

Section 41. A company may purchase and hold real and personal estate necessary or convenient for the operation of its railway; but it shall not, except as provided in section sixty-four, directly or indirectly, subscribe for, take or hold stock or bonds of any such company organi…

Section 42. A company may, except in Boston, acquire, hold, maintain and equip land for purposes of recreation and for pleasure resorts, provided that the department shall find that the acquisition, equipment and maintenance of such land for such purposes and the cost thereof and…

Section 43. A company may use electricity, or such other motive power, other than steam, as the department may permit.

Section 44. Any company, with the approval of the department, may acquire, own and operate, for the transportation of passengers or freight, motor vehicles not running upon rails or tracks, but in such operation shall be subject to chapters one hundred and fifty-nine A and one hu…

Section 45. A company may, for all purposes necessary or reasonably incident to the construction, maintenance or operation of its railway, generate, manufacture, use and transmit electricity in any city or town where authorized to operate its railway, and may erect and maintain t…

Section 46. A company may permit another street railway company to operate cars over its tracks to such extent and under such rules and regulations as the department deems consistent with the public safety.

Section 47. The department may, on petition of a company or of any interested party, after notice and a public hearing, determine the reasonable conditions which shall govern the interchange of traffic and cars between companies, and may, wherever it is reasonable and consistent …

Section 48. A company, with the consent of a railroad corporation owning tracks, may, to such extent and subject to such terms and regulations as the department may approve or prescribe, operate cars upon and over such tracks of said railroad corporation as are equipped for opera…

Section 49. A company may allow street sprinkling cars or similar apparatus to be used upon its tracks, may furnish the motive power and use of tracks or other facilities, and may make contracts therefor; but this section shall be operative only to such extent and subject to such…

Section 5. The directors shall appoint a clerk and a treasurer who shall hold their respective offices until a clerk and a treasurer of the company are qualified in their stead. The directors shall fill any vacancy in their board, or in the office of clerk or treasurer, before th…

Section 50. A company may, with the consent of the board of aldermen or the selectmen, convey in cars over its tracks snow, ice, stones, gravel, dirt, or street sweepings, taken from any street or way over or through which its tracks are located, in order to keep said street or w…

Section 51. A company may convey in cars over its tracks coal and other supplies for its own use.

Section 52. A company may carry the United States mail.

Section 53. A company, on petition of any interested party, may become a common carrier of newspapers, baggage, express matter and freight, upon such parts of its railway and subject to such orders, rules or regulations as may from time to time be made, established or prescribed …

Section 54. Except as provided in this chapter or chapter one hundred and fifty-nine or one hundred and sixty, and except for the purpose of reaching its car barns or repair shops, and of reaching and providing convenient terminals in parks and pleasure resorts situated upon the …

Section 55. A company, organized, or in process of organization, under the laws of the commonwealth, having first obtained the approval of the board of aldermen of the city or of the selectmen of the town where private land is situated to the construction of its railway thereon, …

Section 56. A street railway constructed upon private land shall not be opened for public use until the department, after examination, certifies that all laws relative to its construction and all requirements of the department have been complied with, and that it appears to be in…

Section 57. A company, whose railway is constructed in part outside the limits of public ways, shall, in respect of the equipment, use and operation of its railway and transportation thereon, be subject to the laws relative to street railway companies, as fully as if its railway …

Section 58. A domestic company may apply to the board of aldermen of a city or to the selectmen of a town where it desires to take land, for an adjudication that public necessity and convenience require that certain land, or interests in land, as described in its petition, and fo…

Section 59. A company acting under authority of the preceding section shall be subject to sections seventy-five, seventy-six, eighty, eighty-one, eighty-six, ninety to ninety-three, inclusive, ninety-six and two hundred and fifty-two of chapter one hundred and sixty, and, if its …

Section 6. The directors, before applying for locations for a railway, shall cause a copy of the agreement of association to be published in a newspaper, if any, published in each of the cities and towns where the railway is to be located, and, if, in any county, a newspaper is p…

Section 60. A company authorized to construct its railway at grade across a public way in any place where such crossing is not a part of the crossing of such way by another public way, and incident to the construction of the street railway longitudinally within the limits of such…

Section 61. The three preceding sections shall not enlarge the extent or purposes for which a street railway may be constructed or operated outside the limits of public ways as defined and limited in sections fifty-four and fifty-five.

Section 62. A company shall not lease or contract for the operation of its railway for a period of more than ninety-nine years without the consent of the general court, nor, except as provided in the three following sections and in section one hundred and twenty-three, shall it s…

Section 63. A domestic company may sell and convey the whole or a part of its franchise and property to, or may consolidate with, any other such company whose railway connects with, intersects or forms a continuous line with its own, if the facilities for travel on the railway of…

Section 64. The purchasing or consolidated company may, subject to section twenty-eight, increase its capital stock and issue bonds to an amount necessary for the purposes authorized in the preceding section, and may exchange its securities for those of the selling or merged comp…

Section 65. Such purchasing or consolidated company shall have the powers and privileges, and be subject to the duties, liabilities and restrictions, of the company selling or merged, but, except as provided in this chapter or chapter one hundred and fifty-nine, no right to condu…

Section 66. Two domestic companies, whose railways connect with or intersect each other or together form a continuous line, may contract that either company shall perform all the transportation upon and over the whole or any part of the railway of the other; or any such company m…

Section 67. A company which contracts for the operation, or takes a lease, of another railway shall, subject to the terms of such contract or lease, have and enjoy the powers and privileges, and be subject to the duties, liabilities and restrictions of the company owning it; but …

Section 68. A company shall not appropriate for the payment of dividends any money received from the sale of any portion of its railway, unless it first reduces its capital stock issued, by an amount which, at its par value, is equal to the amount which such portion of its railwa…

Section 69. A domestic company may purchase from a street railway company incorporated under the laws of another state so much of the railway, franchise and property of such other company as is located or used and exercised within this commonwealth when the railway of such other …

Section 69A. An association or trust which owns all of the capital stock of a company may be merged into such company. Such company and such association or trust shall enter into an agreement in writing which shall prescribe the terms of the merger. Such agreement shall be approv…

Section 7. The board of aldermen of a city or the selectmen of a town, upon petition executed in accordance with the by-laws or a vote of the directors of a company organized or in process of organization under this chapter, or organized under a special act, for an original locat…

Section 70. The board of aldermen of a city or the selectmen of a town, on petition of fifty legal voters, or on petition executed in accordance with the by-laws or a vote of the directors of a company whose tracks are located in said city or town, after public notice and a heari…

Section 71. The board of aldermen of a city or the selectmen of a town, on petition executed in accordance with the by-laws or a vote of the directors of a company whose tracks are located in said city or town, or on petition of any interested party, after public notice and a hea…

Section 72. The several boards, departments and commissions authorized by law to grant locations to companies may, to enable any such company to avoid interruption of its service, on petition of such company or of any interested party, grant temporary locations for the tracks of …

Section 73. If a bridge upon which a company is authorized to lay and use tracks is being or is to be altered, rebuilt, improved or repaired, the board of aldermen of a city or the selectmen of a town on petition of the president or a majority of the directors of such company may…

Section 74. A company whose petition for such temporary location has been refused in whole or in part, or has been neither granted nor refused, within fourteen days after the filing thereof, may apply to the department for such temporary location. If the department deems public n…

Section 75. A company which is granted such temporary location for the extension of its tracks shall not maintain them nor operate cars over them beyond the period during which the operation of its cars over such bridge is interrupted by reason of such alteration, improvement, re…

Section 76. If such bridge is altered, rebuilt, improved or repaired under sections fifty-nine to sixty-four, inclusive, of chapter one hundred and fifty-nine, the cost of construction of the tracks upon and over such temporary location shall be reckoned as a part of the charges …

Section 77. The board of aldermen or selectmen, after the expiration of one year from the opening for use of a street railway in their city or town, and after public notice and a hearing as provided in section seven, if public necessity and convenience in the use of the public wa…

Section 78. If application is made for a location in a public way where no street railway tracks are located, and such way is widened under chapter eighty or eighty-two by an order declaring the widening to be necessary for public convenience for the purpose of granting such loca…

Section 79. If a public way where the tracks of a company have been located for a period of five years is altered, or if the grade thereof is changed under chapter eighty or eighty-two, the company shall pay such proportionate share of the expense thereof, including therein the n…

Section 8. When the amount of capital stock named in the agreement of association has been subscribed in good faith by responsible persons, and ten per cent of the par value of each share has been paid in cash to the treasurer, the directors, clerk and treasurer shall annex to th…

Section 80. The provisions of chapter eighty relative to the assessment of betterments on real estate, so far as applicable, shall apply to assessments made under the two preceding sections.

Section 81. If the board of aldermen of a city or the selectmen of a town and a company having a location in a way which said board of aldermen or said selectmen or the county commissioners of the county where said city or town lies have in writing requested the commonwealth to t…

Section 82. If a public way in which a street railway location has been granted shall be thereafter laid out, taken charge of or constructed by or under the authority of said department of highways, it shall thereafter, relative to the location and maintenance of a street railway…

Section 83. No street railway or portion or extension thereof shall be opened for public use until the department, after an examination, certifies that all laws relative to its construction have been complied with, and that it appears to be in a safe condition for operation; but …

Section 84. The board of aldermen or the selectmen may, subject to the approval, revision or alteration of the department, establish such regulations as to the rate of speed, the manner and extent of use of tracks, and the number and routes of cars which run over such tracks, wit…

Section 85. The department of highways, in respect to state highways, and the superintendent of streets of cities or officers exercising like authority therein and the selectmen in towns in respect to all other public ways, shall establish regulations for the clearance of snow fr…