Main Street, Phoenixville station
| 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), over which distance it gained 316 feet (96 m) in elevation. The company was incorporated June 4, 1869, under the provisions of a special act of the Pennsylvania government approved April 3, 1869, and organized 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 Reading Railroad; it opened in September 1871.
The railroad's principal business was as a "milk run" line, 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. 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 (an 1882 newspaper editorial complained that the company's stock was "worthless"). When the lease expired in 1906, the line was more formally merged into the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad system, becoming known as the Pickering Valley Branch of the Reading.
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.
Passenger service on the Pickering Valley was discontinued in 1934, 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) until abandoned by Conrail (successor to the Reading) in the 1980s. Little remains of the line today
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