delivered the opinion of the court.
For twenty-five years the Lake Erie & Western Railroad Company maintained and operated on its right of way at Elliott, Illinois, a side track passing a grain elevator and coal yard operated by one Cameron. The elevator stood partly on thе right of way and partly on ground owned by Cameron, his occupancy of the former being under a lease. In May, 1915, the elevator was destroyed by fire, whereupon the company exercised a reserved option to cancel the lease and also took up the side track. Cameron protested against the latter, proceeded to rebuild the elevator at its former location, but wholly on his own ground, and in June, 1915, filed with the Public Utilities Commission a petition praying that a restoration of the track be ordered. After notice and hearing thе commission granted such an order and it was upheld by the circuit and supreme courts of the State. 277 Illinois, 574.
*424 It is contеnded hero, as it was in the state courts,' that fhe order сontravenes the due process of law clausе of the Fourteenth Amendment, in that it takes property оf the railroad company for private use, or for public use without compensation.
Such an order, bеing legislative in its nature and made by an instrumentality of the Statе, is a state law within the meaning of the Constitution of the United Stаtes and the laws of Congress regulating our jurisdiction.
Grand Trunk Western Ry. Co.
v.
Railroad Commission of Indiana,
Under the law's of the State the side track before its removal, although used principally.in moving freight from and to Cameron’s еlevator and.coal yard, was open to use by the public and subject to public control like other рarts of the company’s road; in other words, it was a trаck which, the State impressed with a public charaсter. Truesdale v. Peoria Grape Sugar Co., 101 Illinois, 561, 567; Chicago Dock & Canal Co. v. Garrity, 115 Illinois, 155, 167, 171; Chicago & Alton R. R. Co. v. Suffern, 129 Illinois, 274, 286. Not only so, but the statute under which its restoration wаs ordered contains express provisions whereby it will retain that character and be open to use by оther shippers as well as by Cameron. Hurd’s Stats., 1916, c. 111a, § 45.
The shipments for which the track has been used have yielded the company a revenue of about $20,000 each yеar for several years. What the cost of restorаtion will be the record does not disclose, but the cоmmission, with knowledge of such matters, has found that it is justified by the business rеasonably to be expected; and the Su *425 preme Court of the State, besides sustaining that and other findings of the сommission, aptly points out that but for the hasty and improрer removal of the track the company “would not be at the expense of replacing it.” When the track is restored the company will own it and be entitled to make a reasonable charge for its use, just as is thе case with other property employed in the company's transportation service.
Applying the decision just announced in Chicago & Northwestern Ry. Co. v. Ochs, ante, 416, we think the order does not take property of the company for private use, or for public use without compensation, in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Judgment affirmed.