Borough of Millvale v. Evergreen Railway Co.

Citations

• 131 Pa. 1
• 18 A. 993
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 1078

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>1. There is no specific definition, either statutory or in common understanding, of the term “ passenger railway,” and no necessary inference follows from the use of that term, in the title of an act of incorporation, that the franchise it confers is restricted to a railway upon the streets of a municipality, of limited extent, and without authority in the company to carry anything but passengers, or to use steam-ears and the kind of rails appropriate therefor.</p> <p>2. The terms “railway” and “railroad” being synonymous, the term “passenger railway” having no precise meaning, and the name of a corporation not being necessarily descriptive of its purposes and object, a title in the words, “An Act to incorporate the Lawrenceville & Evergreen Passenger Railway Company,” is sufficient to authorize the passage thereunder, prior to the constitution of 1874, of an act granting a special charter for a steam railroad.</p> <p>3. A title declaring an act to be a supplement to a former one is a sufficient statement of the subject matter, if the legislation therein contained is germane to the subject of the original act; wherefore, the act of March 9, 1872, R. L. 290, entitled “A supplement to an act to incorporate the Lawrenceville & Evergreen Passenger Railway Company, approved May 18, 1871,” P. L. 850, authorizing said company to extend its road, and giving it all the powers specified in the act of Februai'y 19, 1849, P. L. 79, is not unconstitutional by reason of its title.</p> <p>4. A railroad company whose charter gives it, without qualification, the ■right to lay its track upon any public road, opened or afterwai’d to be opened, has a right to construct and operate its road upon and along the streets of an incorporated borough without obtaining the consent of the borough authorities thereto, its powers in the exercise of its franchises being of just as high and authoritative origin as the right-of the borough itself to exist.</p> <p>5. It is