Any railway company may acquire by conventional or judicial sales, or by lease, from any other railway corporation, any railroad, the whole or any part of which is in Louisiana, with all the property, privileges, appurtenances, rights and franchises, stocks and bonds, of such railway company, whenever the railroad lines of the contracting companies form, in their operation, connecting or continuous lines of railroad, by bridge, ferry or otherwise. However, the lines of the contracting companies shall not be parallel and competing.
La. R.S. § 45:615