Pickering Valley Railroad

in 1871. . The company was incorporated on June 4, 1869, under the provisions of a special act of the Pennsylvania government approved on April 3, 1869, and organized on June 22, 1869, with the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company subscribing to the bulk of the stock. In or about 1870, the still-unbuilt railroad was leased to the Philadelphia and Reading; it opened its operations in September 1871. transporting agricultural products from local farms to Phoenixville, for connections with other railroad lines and especially for shipment to Philadelphia; it also carried iron ore from nearby mines to the Phoenix Iron Company in Phoenixville. It played a role in the development of the area's graphite mining industry as well. The company was not a financial success: revenues barely covered operating costs, leaving nothing to pay to the investors). When the lease expired in 1906, the line was more formally merged into the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad system, Passenger service on the Pickering Valley Branch was discontinued in 1934) until abandoned by Conrail (successor to the Reading) in 1982. Little remains of the line today. ==Accidents==

The Pickering Valley Railroad was the scene of a significant wreck on the night of October 4, 1877. A torrential ("phenomenal") 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 held on the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Germantown, ran into the washout in the dark. The wreck was the worst railroad accident in the history of Chester County. A lawsuit arising from the accident rose to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which affirmed the judgement for the plaintiff in the amount of $3,500. That case became precedent, as the court formulated a rule that when a railroad accepts money and undertakes to transport a passenger, there arises an implied contract of care upon the part of the company, and if the passenger is injured by any accident arising from a collision or a defect in the track or equipment, negligence is presumed on the part of the railroad; the passenger needs only to prove the fact of the accident and the extent of the injury. On August 4, 1895, the evening train to Phoenixville, carrying members of the Salvation Army returning from a meeting, struck a cow near Kimberton and was derailed. The locomotive and several cars went down a steep embankment. The engineer was killed; the fireman and several passengers were seriously injured. ==Notes==