Known railroads and their operations for Massachusetts are listed here. Subdivisions that cross state lines will only contain information and GPS ranges to approximately the state line to prevent unnecessary overlap.

Due to operational changes, mergers and general changes, some railroad radio channels may be reused by the same or adjacent railroads. However, if using RadioReference aware scanners or software, you can reduce seeing or duplicating this information by scanning just the subdivisions or locations that you are interested in.

Railroads are listed by size starting with the largest and ending with historical/tourist operations and in alphabetical order.

Passenger operations can be heard on the respective railroad they are operating on unless passenger stations have specific radio assignments.

Short alpha names are comprised of the railroads AAR reporting mark, AAR channel number and subdivision or major use function. The description field will contain actual use or location information to provide the best possible information for various scanners, users and readability.

Traveling system gangs (Maintenance of Way) will use the area road channel for track authority and for the foreman to grant trains through the work limits. These gangs will typically use their own channels - and such channels should not be submitted to the database as they are only temporary for the area. Signal, communications and other engineering groups will typically only be on the road channel, but may use any other as needs warrant. Both "road" and "dispatcher" channels should be monitored if both are listed for a given subdivision. This arrangement is typically used by CSX Transportation and Pan Am Railways.

Amtrak Lake Shore Limited 48/49 is hosted by CSXT and MBTA. Vermonter 55/56 & 54/57 is hosted by CSXT, NECR & PAR. Downeaster is hosted by MBTA and Pan Am. MBTA operating over freight railroads will operate on the host railroad channels for that segment