(b)alter the course of any rivers, brooks, streams, or watercourses, for the purpose of constructing and maintaining tunnels, bridges, passages or other works over or under them, and divert or alter, as well temporarily as permanently, the course of any rivers, brooks, streams or watercourses or any roads, streets or ways, or raise or sink the level thereof, in order the more conveniently to carry them over or under or by the side or the railway, as the railway administration thinks proper;