Chicago & Alton Railroad v. Suffern

Citations

• 129 Ill. 274
• 21 N.E. 824

Syllabus

<p>1. BahiEoads—permitting connections — constitutional requirements By section 5, article 13, of the constitution, it is made the legal duty of railroad companies to permit connections to be made with their tracks,, so that any public warehouse, coal bank or coal yard may be reached by the cars on their roads. The command to allow such connection is imperative.</p> <p>2. Same—side-track connections—with coal mine—severing the connection—rights and remedy of owner. Where a railway company has permitted the owner of a coal mine to build a side-track connecting its-main track with the mine, and continues for years to furnish cars to haul coal from the mine over its line, such side-track must be considered as a part of its line; and if it disconnects such side-track, it may, by mandamus, be compelled to restore such connection.</p> <p>3. In 1879 a railway company allowed the owners of a coal mine to build a switch from its main track to the mine, and to use the same for eight years in shipping coal from their mine, when, without right or authority, it cut the switch loose from its track, so that its cars could not reach such mine, and thereby refused any longer to grant the permission required by the constitution: Held, that the company was guilty of the violation of a public duty, and that mandamus would lie to compel it to restore such connections with the switch, and to furnish cars on the switch for the shipping of coal from the mine, the same as before the severance.</p> <p>4. In such case it may be that the railway company was originally vested with such discretionary power as to authorize it to direct in what particular manner the connection should be made with its main track; but the discretion of the company in this respect was exhausted after the completion of the switch, and its use, without objection, for a number of years.</p> <p>5. When the constitution enjoins it as a duty upon a railroad company to permit a connection between its tracks and any coal min