Pickering Valley Railroad

Pickering Valley Railroad
Locale Pennsylvania
Dates of operation 1871–1906
Successor Reading Railroad
Track gauge 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Length 11.3 miles (18.2 kilometres)
Headquarters Phoenixville, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Pickering Valley Railroad was a short line railroad in Chester County, Pennsylvania. It ran from Phoenixville to Byers, near Eagle, in Upper Uwchlan Township, a distance of approximately 11 miles (18 km),[1] over which distance it gained 316 feet (96 m) in elevation.[2] The company was incorporated June 4, 1869, under the provisions of a special act of the Pennsylvania government approved April 3, 1869,[3] and organized June 22, 1869, with the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company subscribing to the bulk of the stock.[4] In or about 1870, the still-unbuilt railroad was leased to the Reading Railroad; it opened in September 1871.[4]

The railroad's principal business was as a "milk run" line,[5]:12 transporting agricultural products from local farms to Phoenixville, for connections with other railroad lines; it also carried iron ore from nearby mines to the Phoenix Iron Company in Phoenixville.[6] It played a role in the development of the area's graphite mining industry as well.[7] The company was not a financial success: revenues barely covered operating costs, leaving nothing to pay to the investors[4] (an 1882 newspaper editorial complained that the company's stock was "worthless"[8]). When the lease expired in 1906, the line was more formally merged into the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad system,[4] becoming known as the Pickering Valley Branch of the Reading.[6]

The Montgomery and Chester Electric Railway, opened in 1899, provided local trolley service between Phoenixville and Spring City, to the northwest. The original line met with the Pickering Valley's at Ironsides, just west of Phoenixville; the Pickering Valley refused to allow the M&C's track to cross its own, requiring passengers to ride one trolley to Ironsides, cross the Pickering Valley's tracks, and take another car to their destination. Not until 1908 was an arrangement made to permit building a trestle 517 feet long, bridging the railroad's right of way and allowing through trolley service.[9]

Passenger service on the Pickering Valley was discontinued in 1934,[5]:20 and the portion of the line from Kimberton to Byers was abandoned in 1948. The remaining track served the Phoenix steel mill (a portion was also briefly used by the Valley Forge Scenic Railroad[10]) until abandoned by Conrail (successor to the Reading) in the 1980s. Little remains of the line today[6][11]

Kimberton station, ca. 1908
Chester Springs station, ca. 1900
Anselma station, ca. 1935
About 300 feet (100m) of abandoned track remains in Phoenixville.
Station NameDistanceNotes
mi[12] km
Phoenixville 0.0 0.0 Connection with Reading Railroad
Main Street (Phoenixville) 0.5 0.8
Phoenixville (freight spur) 425 Bridge Street[13]
Ironsides 1.5 2.4 Near Schuylkill Road and Township Line Road; also called French Creek Sta.
French Creek Junction 3.2 5.1 Connection with Delaware River & Lancaster Railroad
Kimberton 3.7 6.0 2205 Kimberton Road[14]
Hallman's 5.5 8.9 At Old Kimberton Road, near present-day Pike Springs Road[15]
Pikeland 7.0 11.3 At Pikeland Road
Chester Springs 7.5 12.1 Served Yellow Springs
Camp ? ? Appears only on the oldest maps[16]
Anselma 9.0 14.5 Also known as Cambria[13]
Lionville 9.8 15.8 At Lionville Station Road
Byers 11.0 17.7 Terminus; near Byers Road and Graphite Mine Road

Accident

The Pickering Valley Railroad was the scene of a significant wreck on the night of October 4, 1877. A torrential ("phenomenal"[17]) rainstorm had washed out a portion of the track near Kimberton, and a passenger train from Phoenixville, carrying about 130 people, including many returning from a Pennypacker family reunion, ran into the washout in the dark.[18] The locomotive plunged thirty feet, the first passenger car fell on top of the locomotive, and the second passenger car landed atop the first. Seven passengers and crew were killed, and several dozen injured.[17][18] A lawsuit arising from this accident rose to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which affirmed the judgement for the plaintiff in the amount of $3,500.[19] The wreck was Chester County's worst railroad accident ever.[20]

References

  1. ↑ Greenwood, A.L., "The railroads of Chester County", History Quarterly, Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society, February, 1955 Volume 7 Number 4, Pages 86–94.
  2. ↑ Persifor Frazer, "Report of a Geological Survey of Chester County", Chap. 1 in: J.P. Lesley, ed., The Geology of Chester County: After the Surveys of Henry D. Rogers, Persifor Frazer, and Charles E. Hall, Board of Commissioners for the Second Geological Survey, Harrisburg, 1883. Pp. 23, 26.
  3. ↑ An Act to Incorporate the Pickering Valley Railroad Company, P.L. 1869, 686 (1869).
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Pickering Valley Railroad was Completed on Sept. 1, 1871; Leased by the Reading", Reading Eagle, Aug 18, 1912, p. 18.
  5. 1 2 East Pikeland Township Historical Commission, Kimberton Area Heritage Action Plan, 2012.
  6. 1 2 3 The Pickering Valley Railroad, AbandonedRails.com; accessed 2014.01.27.
  7. ↑ See Miller, Benjamin L., Graphite Deposits of Pennsylvania, Report No. 6, Topographic and Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, 1912, pp. 96-110.
  8. ↑ Editorial, Phoenixville Messenger, April 15, 1882.
  9. ↑ Herb Fry, "The Amusement Park on the Trolley Line", Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society History Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 3 (July 1992), pp. 87–100.
  10. ↑ "A History of No. 58", Wilmington & Western Railroad; accessed 2014.01.28.
  11. ↑ Tinsman, Mary Alfson, Memorandum: French Creek Parkway Project, May 16, 2011, CHRS, Inc.
  12. ↑ The Official Railway Guide: North American Freight Service Edition. 1902. p. 303.
  13. 1 2 Pennsylvania Railroad Stations, Past and Present, Chester County; accessed 2014.04.21.
  14. ↑ Some 1969 footage, largely filmed at Kimberton, can be found on YouTube.
  15. ↑ Township of East Pikeland [map], Plate 1. Property Maps of Chester County, Pennsylvania, Vol. 2. Franklin Survey Co., Philadelphia. 1934.
  16. ↑ "Camp Station" appears on the 1873 county atlas map of West Pikeland Township (Atlas of Chester Co., Pennsylvania, A.R. Witmer, Safe Harbor, Pa., 1873, map 48), but not the 1883 map (Breou's Official Series of Farm Maps: Chester County, W.H. Kirk & Co., Philadelphia, 1883).
  17. 1 2 Verdict of the coroner's jury, reported in Railway World, Vol. 21, p. 1028, October 27, 1877.
  18. 1 2 "Disasters on Railroads; Trains thrown into washouts", The New York Times, October 6, 1877, p. 1.
  19. ↑ Philadelphia & Reading RR. Co. v. Anderson, 94 Pa. 351 (1880).
  20. ↑ Eric Chandlee Wilson, "The Great Wreck of 1877", Chester County Day, 1997.
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