The 88 stations case was a 1935–40 controversy and court case involving the Old Colony Division of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The New Haven entered bankruptcy in 1935; the next year, it ended the 1893 lease of the unprofitable Old Colony Division, but continued operating those lines by court order. The Old Colony and New Haven closed 88 stations in Massachusetts (plus five in Rhode Island) on July 18, 1938, ending passenger service altogether on some lines. In May 1939, the Old Colony filed to abandon all freight and passenger service on its lines. In November 1939, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Palmer v. Massachusetts that a district court did not have authority to order the discontinuance of intrastate passenger service. Thirty-two of the stations we