Cumberland Valley Railroad Company's Appeal

Citations

• 245 Pa. 107
• 91 A. 254
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 840

Syllabus

<p>Railroads — Grade crossings — Establishment of grade crossings— Act of June 7,1901, P. L. 5S1 — Dangerous crossing.</p> <p>1. The Act of June 7, 1901, P. L. 531, forbidding public authorities, except in cities of the first and second classes, to construct a public highway at grade over the tracks of a railroad company, unless permission to do so be obtained from the Court of Common Pleas of the district in which the crossing is situated, is not an enabling act to facilitate the building of highways over railroads at grade, but prohibitory, and public authorities who petition for leave to establish a grade crossing come into' court with a heavy burden of proof resting upon them.</p> <p>2. The fact that a proposed public grade, crossing happens to take in a private crossing formerly used by two farmers, does not render the proposed crossing merely a perpetuation of the old private crossing, so as to take it out of the class of crossings covered by the Act of June 7, 1901, P. L. 531, which may be established only in accordance with proceedings taken under section 4 of the act.</p> <p>3. The supervisors of a township petitioned for leave to build a highway over a. railroad at grade. The lower court found that between fifty and sixty trains daily passed the point where the crossing was intended to be constructed, some having a speed of from forty to forty-five miles an hour, others from sixty-five to seventy miles an hour; that the traffic of the road was rapidly increasing, that the land on either side was under cultivation and that at certain seasons growing com obstructed the view so that the tracks could not be seen by one traveling on the highway, though the smoke from the engines could be seen above the corn; that the cost of constructing an overhead crossing would be $20,000, half of which would be borne by the railroad company.. There was no finding as to the probable amount of travel on the highway which was in course of construction, but the petition for the