mill (a portion was also briefly used by the Valley Forge Scenic Railroad) 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 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 dozens suffered varying degrees of injury. The wreck was the worst railroad accident in the history of Chester County. A coroner's jury, investigating the accident, found that while the rainstorm was indeed phenomenal, the railroad had not allowed for sufficient drainage in the area. More dangerously, the railroad ran the train with the locomotive backwards, and the cars in improper order: First, the engine reversed, with tank foremost and engine running backward, with the head light upon the front end of the tank as it ran; second, the gentlemen's car, on the night in question, occupied by both sexes; third, the combination of ladies’ and baggage car in one; fourth, and last, the milk car . . . The train was run in this manner in violation of the rules of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company, operators of the Pickering Valley Railroad . . . The jury concluded that if the railroad had followed its own rules, and had ordered the consist so that the locomotive was first and the milk car second, followed by the two passenger cars, one of the passenger cars would have remained on the track. 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,