Pennsylvania R. R. v. Montgomery County Passenger Railway

Citations

• 167 Pa. 62
• 31 A. 468
• 1895 Pa. LEXIS 862

Syllabus

<p>[Marked to be reported.]</p> <p>Street railways — Suburban lines — Country roads — Act of May 14,1889.</p> <p>The street railway act oí May 14, 1889, P. L. 211, does not contemplate or provide for the construction of long lines of transportation, connecting widely separated cities and towns by electric railways, traversing country roads.</p> <p>A distinction exists between urban and suburban property as to the right of corporations to occupy a highway for a street passenger railway. A city or borough may impose the additional servitude of a street railway upon the city or borough streets, but the authorities of a township cannot impose such additional servitude upon roads without the consent of the abutting landowners.</p> <p>When the supervisors of a township give their consent to the occupation oí township roads by a street railway, they act as the representatives of the people, who build and use the roads, and not as the representatives of the owners of the private property over which the roads pass. The company can only protect itself by securing the consent of every property 3wner along the roads which it wishes to occupy.</p> <p>Street railways — Consent of local authorities — Form of consent — Evilence.</p> <p>The consent of the supervisors of a township to the use of township oads by a street railway company is invalid, unless it is given at a reguxrly convened meeting of the supervisors, and the proceedings should be ntered in the townhip books kept by the town clerk.</p> <p>A paper signed by the supervisors, in the pocket of a contractor, or of Anne officer of a corporation, is not the proper evidence of action by the township.</p> <p>Street railways — Construction of railways without consent — Estoppel.</p> <p>Where township officers and owners of land abutting upon roads have stood by and permitted the expenditure of large sums of money in the construction of a street railway upon the roads, they cannot afterwards demand that the railway shall be torn