tain such fence. If such owner, his heir or assign shall not build such fence, or if built, shall neglect to maintain the same during the period of thirty days after he has been notified so to do by the railroad corporation, such corporation shall thereafter build and maintain such fence, and may recover of the person neglecting to build and maintain it the expense thereof. And when such railroad shall cross timbered or forest lands, the company shall construct and maintain suitable and sufficient crossings, whenever and wherever reasonably necessary to enable the respective owners of said lands, to transport logs, timber and lumber for manufacture or sale, or for banking on any stream, to be floated or driven down the same. In case of any neglect or dispute the supreme court may by mandamus or other appropri ate proceedings, compel the same, and also fix the point or loca tion of any such crossing. Thus amended by chap. 676, Laws of 1892. Sign boards and flagmen or gates at crossings. § 33. Every railroad corporation shall cause a sign board to be placed, well supported and constantly maintained, at every crossing where its road is crossed by a public highway at grade. Such sign board shall be of a shape and design to be approved by the board of railroad commissioners, and shall have suitable words painted thereon to warn travelers of the existence of such grade crossing. The board of railroad commissioners shall have power to prescribe the location and elevation of such sign and the words of warning thereon. The commission may dispense with the use of such sign boards at such crossings as they may designate in cities and villages. At any point where a railroad crosses a street, highway, turnpike, plank-road, or traveled way at grade, or where a steam railroad crosses a horse railroad at grade, and the corporation owning or operating such railroad, refuses, upon request of the local authorities, to station a flagman or erect gates, to be opened and closed when an engine or train passes, the supreme court or the county court, may, upon the application of the local authorities and upon ten days' notice to the corporation, order that a flagman be stationed at such point, or that gates shall be erected thereat, and that a person be stationed to open and close them when an engine or train passes, or may make such other order respecting the same as it deems proper. Whenever the crossing by a railroad at grade of the streets, highways, turnpike, plank-roads, or traveled ways of any village or city, having a population by the last state or federal enumeration of less than fifty thousand, shall be protected by gates with persons to open and close the same, when an engine or train passes, the local authorities of the city or village shall not impose any limitation, less than forty miles an hour, on the rate of speed at which such engine or train shall be run, or enforce any existing limitation upon such rate of speed, less than forty miles an hour. Thus amended by chap. 301, Laws of 1901. See sections 36 and 68, Railroad Law. Notice of starting trains; no preferences. § 34. Every railroad corporation shall start and run its cars for the transportation of passengers and property at regular times, to be fixed by public notice, and shall furnish sufficient accommodations for the transportation of all passengers and property which shall be offered for transportation at the place of starting, within a reasonable time previously thereto, and at the junctions of other railroads, and at the usual stopping places established for receiving and discharging way passengers and freight for that train; and shall take, transport and discharge such passengers and property at, from and to, such places, on the due payment of the fare or freight legally authorized therefor. No station established by any railroad corporation for the reception or delivery of passengers or property, or both, shall be discontinued without the consent of the board of railroad commissioners first had and obtained. No preference for the transaction of the business of a common carrier upon its cars, or in its depots or buildings, or upon its grounds, shall be granted by any railroad corporation to any one of two or more persons, associations or corporations competing in the same business, or in the business of transporting property for themselves or others. Any such station in an incorporated village shall have the same name as the village; if any road shall have more than one such station in any such village the station nearest the geographical center thereof shall have such name. Thus amended by chap. 676, Laws of 1892. Accommodation of connecting roads. § 35. Every railroad corporation whose road, at or near the same place, connects with or is intersected by two or more railroads competing for its business, shall fairly and impartially afford to each of such connecting or intersecting roads equal terms of accommodation, privileges and facilities in the transportation of cars, passengers, baggage and freight over and upon its roads and over and upon their roads, and equal facilities in the interchange and use of passenger, baggage, freight and other cars required to accommodate the business of each road, and in furnishing passage tickets to passengers who may desire to make a continuous trip over any part of its roads and either of such connecting roads. The board of railroad commissioners may, upon application of the corporation owning or operating either of the connecting or intersecting roads, and upon fourteen days' notice to the corporation owning or operating the other road, prescribe such regulations as will secure, in their judgment, the enjoyment of equal privileges, accommodations and facilities to such connecting or intersecting roads as may be required to accommodate the business of each road, and the terms and conditions upon which the same shall be afforded to each road. The decision of the commissioners shall be binding on the parties for two years, and the supreme court shall have power to compel the performance thereof by attachment, mandamus, or otherwise. See section 12, Railroad Law, ante. See 171 N. Y., 589; 75 App. Div. 412; 175 N. Y. Mem. 468. Locomotives must stop at grade crossings; interlocking devices at street and steam railroad grade crossings. § 36. All trains and locomotives on railroads crossing each other at grade shall come to a full stop before crossing, not less than two hundred or more than eight hundred feet from the crossing, and shall then cross only when the way is clear and upon a signal from a watchman stationed at the crossing. If the corporations can not agree as to the expense of the watchman, it shall be determined by the supreme court, upon motion thereto by either of them. If the corporations disagree as to the precedence of trains, the board of railroad commissioners may, after hearing, upon the application of either corporation, prescribe rules in relation thereto. The full stop and crossing on signal may be discontinued if the board of railroad commissioners shall decide it to be impracticable, or if, with the approval of the commissioners, an interlocking switch and signal apparatus is adopted and put in operation as * such a crossing. The full stop and crossing on signal shall not be required in depot yards, or the approaches thereto, if the crossing roads are under lease or subject to the same management or control in the use of tracks. An engineer, violating the foregoing provisions of this section, or any such rule of the railroad commissioners, shall be liable to a penalty of one hundred dollars; and any corporation or person operating the railroad, violating any of such provisions or rules shall be liable to a penalty of five hundred dollars. The board of railroad commissioners may, whenever in its judgment the public safety requires the erection of interlocking switch and signal devices at points where steam and street surface railroads intersect at grade, direct the erection of such devices and apportion the expense of construction, operation and maintenance thereof between the companies affected thereby. No railroad corporation, or any officer, agent or employe thereof, shall stop its cars, horses, or locomotives upon a grade crossing of a railroad of another corporation, for the purpose of receiving or deliv *So in the original. ering passengers or freight, or other purpose, and any person or corporation violating this provision, shall be liable to a penalty of two hundred and fifty dollars. Thus amended by chap. 466, Laws of 1898. See sections 33 and 68, Railroad Law. Rates of fare. § 37. Every railway corporation may fix and collect the fol lowing rates of fare as compensation to be paid for transporting any passenger and his baggage, not exceeding one hundred and fifty pounds in weight, for each mile or fraction of a mile. 1. Where the motive power is rope or cable, propelled by stationary power, five cents, with right to a minimum fare of ten cents; but if the railroad is less than two miles in length, and overcomes an elevation of five hundred feet or more to the mile, five cents for each one hundred feet of elevation so overcome, and the same rates of fare if the motive power is locomotives, furnished with cogs working into cogs on the railway, and the length of road does not exceed four miles. 2. If a road, not incorporated prior to May 15, 1879, and not located in the counties of New York and Kings, or within the limits of any incorporated city, and not more than twenty-five miles in length, five cents; if over twenty-five and not more than forty miles, four cents; and if over forty miles, three cents. Where by the laying down of a third rail upon a railroad of the ordinary gauge, a narrow-gauge track is created and used for the transportation of passengers, and the length of road does not exceed six miles, including any connecting road of the same gauge, such railroad, for the purpose of fare, shall be deemed a narrow gauge road. 3. If its railroad overcomes an elevation of two hundred feet to the mile, for at least two consecutive miles, and does not exceed twenty miles in length, ten cents; if it overcomes an elevation exceeding three hundred feet to the mile, within a distance of two miles, five cents for each one hundred feet of elevation; and where it overcomes an elevation of more than one thousand feet, within a distance of two miles, seven cents for each one hundred feet of elevation in a mile. |