Reeves v. Phila. Traction Co.

Citations

• 152 Pa. 153
• 25 A. 516
• 1893 Pa. LEXIS 952

Syllabus

<p>Street railways — Constitutional law — Local law — Act of May 8, 1876.</p> <p>The act of May 8, 1876, P. L. 147, repealing the limitations contained in charters of passenger railway companies in cities of the first class, restricting them to the use of horse power, relates to a subject proper for municipal classification, and does not transgress the prohibition of article 3, § 7, of the constitution, as a local or special law amending or extending the charter of a corporation: Weinman v. Pass. Ry., 118 Pa. 192, distinguished.</p> <p>Operation of railway by electricity — Consent of councils.</p> <p>Where a city by an ordinance of councils consents to the operation of a street railway by overhead electric wires, and the company owning the railway is specifically named in the ordinance, but the company to which the railway is leased for a term of years is not mentioned, the consent of the city to the use of electricity as a motor by the lessee company is sufficiently declared.</p> <p>In such a ease the consent of councils was that the thing should be done by two corporations acting together as one, and such consent, whether it named one or the other, wasKneant to be operative as to both.</p> <p>Might to use new motors, if</p> <p>Not decided whether the ’g|ant of a right to build a passenger railway does not cany with it, in the absence of specific limitations or prohibitions, the right from time to time to operate it by new methods and motive powers developed in the progress of invention and experience.</p>