No transportation company subject to this chapter shall abandon all or any portion of its service to the public or the operation of any of its lines, properties or plant which would affect the service it is rendering the public, except ordinary discontinuances of service for nonpayment of charges, nonuser, violations of rules and regulations or similar reasons in the usual course of business, unless and until there shall first have been filed an application for a permit to abandon service and obtained from the commission a permit allowing such abandonment.
Ala. Code § 37-2-5 (1975)