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 conduct an express business or to be a common carrier of merchandise shall, by reason of any such sale or consolidation, be allowed over any location where it had not been granted prior to April tenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 161, § 65