Baltimore & Ohio Railroad v. Butler Passenger Railway Co.

Citations

• 207 Pa. 406
• 56 A. 959
• 1904 Pa. LEXIS 489

Syllabus

<p>Railroads—Location—Grade crossing—•Street railways—Act of June 19, 1871, P. L. 1360.</p> <p>It is the settled policy of the state of Pennsylvania as administered by the courts to permit of no grade crossing of a railroad over another railroad, or a common highway, except in case of manifest and unavoidable necessity.</p> <p>In determining whether it is practicable to avoid a grade crossing, the court will not consider the expense of an overhead structure, nor its unsightliness, nor the fact that damages may have to be paid to the owners of private property by reason of the erection of such structure; nor that an overhead structure will interfere with travel on a street, will frighten horses, and will obstruct the view of coming trains; nor that local sentiment is in favor of such grade crossing.</p> <p>A grade crossing of a street railway over a steam railroad company’s established track in a borough will be enjoined where it appears that the steam railroad crossed the street intended to be occupied by the street railway in a depression, the surface of the ground ascending in both directions from the tracks, that the street in question was veiy much traveled, that a thousand vehicles passed over the crossing daily, that thirty-four scheduled trains, beside extra trains, passed the crossing, and that it was practicable to build an overhead crossing 800 feet long, although the witnesses differed as to the cost of such crossing.</p>