A mine subsidence closed the main line of the Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad in Archbald, Pennsylvania, stopping service to three customers, including the Laminations Inc. plant in the PEI Power Park in Archbald.

The site is about a quarter-mile south of the new Archbald Train Station at the Pike Street railroad crossing and a staging area off Cherry Street where Brojack Lumber, a second affected customer, loads and unloads lumber from rail cars.

The subsidence followed the tracks -- which remained unbroken -- for about 30 feet along Power Boulevard across the road from the Van Hoekelen Greenhouses and below the Laminations factory.

"It's scary. I think this shows how important the railroad is," said railroad authority executive director Larry Malski. Mr. Malski said the authority notified the Office of Surface Mining shortly after the subsidence was discovered by a railroad inspection crew on Tuesday.

OSM Anthracite Branch engineer and project manager Emanuel T. Posluszny said OSM had inspected the subsidence Tuesday and Wednesday and expected to have it filled on Friday under an emergency contract with Brdaric Excavating Inc., Luzerne.

Mr. Posluszny said a subsidence occurred in the exact same location in 1993. That hole was filled and capped with cement. The concrete cap could be seen below the tracks during an inspection of the latest cave-in Wednesday afternoon.

Mr. Posluszny said the site coincides with an outcrop of coal that was last mined in the 1940s.

Schoenberg Salt Co. in Carbondale is the third business impacted by the shutdown, but an official there said the trackside distribution facility off Eighth Avenue has enough product to keep its warehouse crew of just two employees busy for several days since this is a slow time of year.

"The product coming in now is for the next winter season ... all we're doing is storing it," said Schoenberg General Manager Gene Shemonsky. "Now, if this were November or December, I'd be in trouble."

Such is not the case for Laminations, however, where Operations Manager Robert Dougher said the company today will begin looking to set up a temporary, alternative way to transport the tens of thousands of pounds of plastic pellets the plant daily transforms into sheets.

The four-year-old plant is one of several owned by Laminations, but its size and workforce of about 265 employees make it the company's largest.

"We have enough feedstock material to get us through Thursday," Mr. Dougher said.