Home/Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court/Town of Wilmington v. Department of Public Utilities

Town of Wilmington v. Department of Public Utilities

171 N.E.2d 466, 341 Mass. 599, 1961 Mass. LEXIS 819
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedJanuary 5, 1961
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 171 N.E.2d 466 (Town of Wilmington v. Department of Public Utilities) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Town of Wilmington v. Department of Public Utilities, 171 N.E.2d 466, 341 Mass. 599, 1961 Mass. LEXIS 819 (Mass. 1961).

Opinion

Cutter, J.

This is an appeal by the town under G. L. c. 25, § 5, as amended through St. 1956, c. 190, from a decision of the Department of Public Utilities. That decision approved with minor modifications the Boston and Maine Railroad’s discontinuance of certain intrastate passenger service. The decision also approved certain other service adjustments. Demurrers of the railroad and the department were overruled. See Wilmington v. Department of Pub. Util. 340 Mass. 432, 439. The case was later reserved by a single justice, without decision on the merits, upon the petition, answers, and stipulated portions of the record before the department.

The department’s decision authorized the railroad (a) to operate passenger service from Boston over the former Boston-Reading-Lawrence-Haverhill route only as far as Reading; (b) to operate passenger trains from Boston to Lawrence and Haverhill via Wilmington on the “New Hampshire route,” so called, thence running from Wilmington to Wilmington Junction over the so called “wildcat” line, and thence north to Lawrence and Haverhill; and (c) to eliminate the stations at Reading Highlands and North Wilmington (which are between Reading and Wilmington Junction). It directed the railroad to construct a station on the wildcat line at Salem Street. The railroad estimated that net annual savings of $255,022 would result from these adjustments. Certain other service adjustments also were authorized or ordered in connection with the operating changes just mentioned. These other adjustments included elimination of all passenger service over the so called Woburn loop between Woburn station and the loop’s junction with the New Hampshire route in Wilmington.

The town contends that the department erroneously *601 refused certain requests of the town for rulings of law. There was no error in the department’s action.

1. Bequests numbered 1 to 6, inclusive, sought rulings that on all the evidence elimination of all passenger service and all or virtually all freight service over two sections of an interstate main line would constitute an abandonment within the meaning of would of the Interstate Commerce Act as amended 49 U. S. C. (1958) § 1 (18) and would *602 require approval of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Complete abandonment of these lines would clearly require “the approval of the [Interstate [C]ommerce [Commission ... and the abandonment of stations and train service ” would require the department’s approval. See Boston & Albany R.R. v. Commonwealth, 296 Mass. 426, 428, 433; Colorado v. United States, 271 U. S. 153,164,167.

*601

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Bluebook (online)
171 N.E.2d 466, 341 Mass. 599, 1961 Mass. LEXIS 819, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/town-of-wilmington-v-department-of-public-utilities-mass-1961.