Massachusetts Statutes

Section 131. If one railroad corporation occupies or uses, or has a right to occupy, enter upon and use, a station, railroad or grounds of another, or any portion thereof, the department, upon petition of either party, and after notice to the other, and a hearing, shall determine…

Section 131A. Any corporation organized under chapter one hundred and fifty-six may apply to the department for an order qualifying the corporation to acquire, by purchase or otherwise, and to own and operate terminal facilities for steam, electric or other types of railroad. The…

Section 132. Every switch laid in a railroad track used by passenger or mixed trains shall be a safety switch of a type approved in writing by the department. For each switch laid in violation of this section, the railroad corporation shall forfeit two hundred dollars, and the fu…

Section 133. The frogs, switches and guard rails, except guard rails on bridges, which are in or connected with the railroad tracks operated or used by any railroad corporation shall be kept so blocked by some method approved by the department as to prevent employees from being c…

Section 133A. Every railroad corporation shall equip with proper lights or other approved or commonly used devices all switch stands in all yards owned and maintained by such railroad corporation in which trains or switching engines are generally operated during the hours of dark…

Section 134. Whenever the department shall so order, every railroad corporation shall erect and maintain, under conditions prescribed by the department, suitable bridge guards at bridges or other structures crossing the railroad above the track.

Section 134A. Tracks in a yard or yard area owned and maintained by a corporation or company operating a railroad shall have a minimum distance between center lines of parallel tracks of not less than thirteen feet, plus one inch per degree of track curvature. The center line of …

Section 135. If two railroads cross each other at the same level, the engineer of every freight train and, if both railroads are used for passenger traffic, of every passenger train, upon approaching such crossing, shall stop his engine within five hundred feet therefrom, and sha…

Section 136. The department shall make general regulations for all such crossings or special regulations for such particular crossings as it may designate, and in such detail as it may consider expedient; and the supreme judicial court may issue any processes necessary to secure …

Section 137. The department may, on the application of a railroad corporation whose railroad crosses another railroad at the same level, after notice to the parties and a hearing, authorize the applicant at its own expense, to establish and maintain a system of interlocking or au…

Section 138. Every railroad corporation shall cause a bell of at least thirty-five pounds in weight, and a whistle, to be placed on each locomotive engine passing upon its railroad; and such bell shall be rung or at least three separate and distinct blasts of such whistle sounded…

Section 138A. A railroad corporation whose railroad is crossed by a public way at the same grade shall, at its own expense, install at any such grade crossing designated by the department and used by through passenger trains or cars or through freight trains a device to activate …

Section 139. The department, upon petition, and after notice to the railroad corporation and a public hearing, may, for good cause shown, recommend to such railroad corporation such changes as it considers proper in the manner of making up and shifting freight trains or freight c…

Section 14. The agreement of association shall state: (a) That the subscribers thereto associate themselves with the intention of forming a railroad corporation. (b) The corporate name assumed, which shall be one not in use by any other railroad corporation in the commonwealth, o…

Section 140. Every railroad corporation shall cause boards, supported by posts or otherwise at such height as to be easily seen by travelers, and not obstructing travel, containing on each side in capital letters at least nine inches long the following inscription,—RAILROAD CROSS…

Section 141. The board of aldermen of a city or the selectmen of a town where a traveled place is crossed by a railroad at the same level, if of opinion that it is necessary for the better security of the public that boards such as are described in the preceding section should be…

Section 142. Every county, city and town shall, except as hereinafter provided, and the department of highways shall, unless in any case it deems it unnecessary or impracticable so to do, place and maintain warning signs on every public way subject to its jurisdiction where the w…

Section 143. Every railroad corporation shall, within four months after receiving a written request therefor, furnish to any county, city or town in the commonwealth, or to the department of highways, as the case may be, a sufficient number of such warning signs to enable such co…

Section 144. When it appears that the placing of the signs prescribed by section one hundred and forty or section one hundred and forty-two or by both of said sections, is impracticable or unnecessary, the department, on petition, may release the railroad corporation or the count…

Section 145. If any county, city or town shall neglect, for sixty days, to comply with the requirements of section one hundred and forty-two, unless released therefrom by order of the department of telecommunications and energy, or unless prevented by the failure of any railroad …

Section 146. Any person who unlawfully removes, throws down, injures or defaces any such sign shall be punished by a fine of not more than ten dollars, to the use of the county, city or town placing and maintaining the sign, or of the commonwealth, if the sign is placed and maint…

Section 147. Where a railroad and a public way or travelled place cross at the same level, the department, after notice to the interested parties and a hearing, shall order the crossing to be protected by gates, flagman, flashing light signals or such other protective measures as…

Section 147A. All signs, signal posts, gates or other devices maintained by a railroad corporation at a grade crossing shall be reflectorized in accordance with standards prescribed by the department of telecommunications and energy.

Section 148. A railroad corporation which unreasonably neglects to comply with an order or decision made under section one hundred and forty-one or one hundred and forty-seven shall forfeit not more than one thousand dollars.

Section 149. The department may require a railroad corporation whose railroad crosses a highway by a crossing above the level of the highway to give such signal as the department may designate of the approach of trains to such crossing. The department may in each case determine t…

Section 15. The associates may from time to time, at a meeting called therefor, reduce the amount of the capital stock, but not below the limit prescribed in the preceding section; and they may, in like manner, change the gauge of their railroad to the other gauge allowed by said…

Section 150. If the view of a railroad crossing or highway at grade is obstructed by standing wood in woodlands, the railroad corporation or ten citizens of a town may petition the county commissioners for the county where such crossing is situated for the removal of such standin…

Section 151. A railroad corporation, or receiver or assignee thereof, or its or his servant or agent, shall not wilfully or negligently obstruct or unnecessarily or unreasonably use or occupy a public way, or in any case wilfully obstruct, use or occupy it with cars or engines fo…

Section 152. Upon an application to the department, according to section twenty-four of chapter one hundred and fifty-nine, stating that a crossing of a railroad with a public way at the same level is improperly used by a railroad corporation with its freight engines, freight car…

Section 153. A railroad corporation may operate its railroad by electricity, or by such other power as may duly be approved by the department.

Section 154. Every railroad corporation shall cause a sufficient brake to be attached to every car used upon its railroad for the transportation of passengers, and to every car used for the transportation of freight, except four-wheel cars used only for freight; and shall cause a…

Section 155. A railroad corporation, in moving traffic between points in the commonwealth, shall not use any locomotive not equipped with a power driving wheel brake and appliances for operating the train brake system; nor run any train in such traffic unless a sufficient number …

Section 156. A railroad corporation shall cause to be placed upon both ends of every freight car owned by it and which it may lawfully use such automatic or other safety coupler as the department, after an examination and test, may prescribe, and the department may annul any such…

Section 157. A railroad corporation, in moving traffic between points in the commonwealth, shall not haul or use, or permit to be hauled or used, on its lines any car which is not equipped with couplers coupling automatically by impact, and which do not require men to go between …

Section 158. A railroad corporation, in moving traffic between points in the commonwealth, until otherwise ordered by the department, shall not use any car, except flat cars equipped with automatic couplers, which is not provided with secure grab irons or hand holds on the ends a…

Section 159. The standard height of draw bars for freight cars, measured perpendicularly from the level of the top of the rails to the centres of the draw bars, shall be thirty-four and one half inches for standard gauge railroads and twenty-six inches for narrow gauge railroads,…

Section 16. The directors, before fixing the route of the railroad as hereinafter provided, shall publish a copy of the agreement of association in a newspaper, if any, published in each of the cities and towns where the railroad is to be located, and if, in any county, a newspap…

Section 160. A railroad corporation which violates any provision of sections one hundred and fifty-five, one hundred and fifty-seven, one hundred and fifty-eight and one hundred and fifty-nine, shall forfeit one hundred dollars, to be recovered in an action of tort brought in the…

Section 161. Sections one hundred and fifty-five and one hundred and fifty-seven to one hundred and sixty, inclusive, shall not apply to trains composed of four-wheel cars, or to locomotives used in hauling such trains.

Section 162. The department may from time to time, after hearing and for good cause, exempt, until a date fixed by it, any railroad corporation from the requirements of sections one hundred and fifty-five, one hundred and fifty-seven, one hundred and fifty-eight and one hundred a…

Section 163. Every railroad corporation shall equip each of the trains and cars owned or operated by it, for use in case of accident and for safety purposes, with such tools and devices as the department shall order in writing. Said tools and devices shall be kept in a place whic…

Section 163A. Every railroad corporation shall equip each of the track motor cars operated by it with a windshield and a device for cleaning such windshield, which device shall be maintained in good order and shall be so constructed as to be controlled and operated by the operato…

Section 163B. No railroad corporation shall operate a passenger car manufactured after January first, nineteen hundred and seventy-nine, unless it is equipped with at least two windows on each side of said car designed to allow quick and easy egress in case of an emergency, and w…

Section 165. A passenger, mail or baggage car shall not be heated by a stove or furnace kept in the car or suspended therefrom unless it is temporarily necessary by reason of an accident or other emergency, and no method of heating such cars nor heater shall be used until it shal…

Section 166. A passenger car on a railroad shall not be lighted by naphtha, nor by an illuminating oil or fluid made in part of naphtha or which will ignite at a temperature of less than three hundred degrees Fahrenheit. A corporation which violates this section shall forfeit not…

Section 167. Every passenger, baggage, mail and express car, equipped with platforms, and owned or regularly used on any railroad in the commonwealth shall be provided at each end thereof with platform gates of a pattern approved by the department. A railroad corporation which ha…