North Penna. R. R. v. Inland Traction Co.
North Penna. R. R. v. Inland Traction Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
Part of the route of the Philadelphia and Lehigh Valley Traction Company, the real appellee, is on the Chestnut Hill
Though the appellees are styled traction companies the court below regarded them as street railway companies in determining the questions before it, and, on this appeal, the appellants so treat them. Their charters are not before us, but it is conceded by counsel for appellants that whatever rights and franchises they possess were conferred by the general street railway act of May 14, 1889, P. L. 211. It may be, as can fairly be gathered from the ninth paragraph of the answer of the defendants, that the rights and franchises which they are exercising were originally conferred upon a street railway company or companies and passed to them as their successors. Be this as it may, we must, under the circumstances, regard the appellees as possessing and undertaking to exercise the rights and franchises of a street railway company.
By section 17 of the Act of May 14, 1889, it is provided that “ any passenger railway company incorporated under this act shall have, and is hereby granted, power by its officers and servants to ascertain and define such route as they may deem expedient, over, upon and along any turnpike or turnpikes, not however exceeding sufficient width for two tracks to be laid down on, over and along such turnpike or turnpikes, and thereupon, on, over and along such turnpike or turnpikes, to
Under his findings of fact, the learned judge below properly concluded that the defendants were “ lawfully engaged in the construction of their road.” Even if they were not, the Act of June 19, 1871, P. L. 1360, is not intended for such a case as the appellants present, and cannot be invoked by them, for none of their rights or franchises are injured or invaded. The decree can well be affirmed upon the learned court’s second conclusion of law: “ Plaintiffs have no standing to object, as no part of their property is taken or encroached upon. Their ownership of the fee extends only to the middle of the turnpike, and defendants have the consent of the owners of the land on the opposite side, and also the township authorities, and of the turnpike company, which gives them the rights claimed.”
Appeal dismissed and decree affirmed at appellants’ costs.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- North Penna. R. R. Co. v. The Inland Traction Company
- Cited By
- 8 cases
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- Syllabus
- Street railway companies — Township roads — Consent of abutting owners —Owners on opposite side of road. In the case of the occupation of a township road by the tracks of a street railway, an injunction, if applied for in time, will issue at the instance of an abutting owner, to protect his own land to the center line of the road from the additional burden of the tracks upon it. It is none of his concern, that his neighbors on the opposite side of the road consent to the use of their lands by the railway company, so long as, from such use, no injury results to him. The protection by injunction to which the landowner is entitled is confined to his own property. Street railways — Turnpike roads — Consent of abutting owners. Where a street railway company secures the consent of the township authorities to the use of a turnpike road, and also has the consent of the turnpike company and of the owners of property abutting on one side of the road, it may lay its tracks on such side of the road. An owner on the other side of the road who has not consented, but whose property has not been touched and who is in no way injured by the tracks has no standing to maintain a bill for an injunction to restrain the construction of the railway. Railroads — Ownership of land at road crossings — Abutting owners— Turnpike companies. Railroad companies, owners of the land on each side of a turnpike, where their' tracks cross it, are not at that point abutting landowners, having a right to complain of a passenger railway company’s imposition of an additional servitude upon their land; and where the tracks of a railroad company are crossed by an overhead bridge which is part of a public road, the railroad company has no standing to enjoin the construction of the passenger railway company, where it offers to so reconstruct and strengthen the bridge, that it shall be safe for the transportation and carriage of its cars, and this is so notwithstanding the fact that the railroad company owns the fee in the land covered by the bridge and that it built the bridge. Railroads — Street railway companies — Act of June 19, 1871, P. L. 1360.- The Act of June 19, 1871, P. L. 1360, cannot be invoked by a railroad company in a proceeding by it to enjoin the construction of a street railway company along a public road which crosses its tracks and upon which land owned by it abuts, as none of the rights or iranchises of the railroad company are injured or invaded.