The Arkansas Valley Interurban Railway (AVI) was an

interurban railway The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...

that operated in

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

USA from 1910 to 1938 for passengers and to 1942 for freight, running between Wichita,

Newton Newton most commonly refers to: * Isaac Newton (1642–1726/1727), English scientist * Newton (unit), SI unit of force named after Isaac Newton Newton may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Newton'' (film), a 2017 Indian film * Newton ( ...

, and Hutchinson. It operated a small fleet of electrically powered passenger and freight equipment. Service was suspended during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and never resumed, except on a small portion owned the Hutchinson and Northern Railroad which is still in operation. (2020)

History

Proposal

The AVI, as it emerged, was only a portion of a proposal in 1910 for a large network of interurban lines focusing on Wichita, running passenger and freight services mainly in competition with the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...

and expecting to feed freight to the

St. Louis–San Francisco Railway The St. Louis–San Francisco Railway , commonly known as the "Frisco", was a railroad that operated in the Midwest and South Central United States from 1876 to April 17, 1980. At the end of 1970, it operated of road on of track, not includi ...

and the

Midland Valley Railroad The Midland Valley Railroad (MV) was a railroad company incorporated on June 4, 1903 for the purpose of building a line from Hope, Arkansas, through Muskogee and Tulsa, Oklahoma to Wichita, Kansas. It was backed by C. Jared Ingersoll, a Philadelph ...

, also to Wichita's new transcontinental line the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway when that was finished -it never was. The main line was to have been from Wichita to Salina, which two cities lacked any direct passenger railroad service between them -although the line would have run closely parallel with the ''Santa Fe'' to Newton, then the

Missouri Pacific Railroad The Missouri Pacific Railroad , commonly abbreviated as MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers. In 1967, the railroad ...

to McPherson and finally the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

to Salina. From this line, another one would have run from ''Van Arsdale Junction'' (south-west of Newton) to Hutchinson and

Great Bend Great Bend is a city in and the county seat of Barton County, Kansas, United States. It is named for its location at the point where the course of the Arkansas River bends east then southeast. As of the 2020 census, the population of the ci ...

, again closely paralleling ''Santa Fe'' lines. From Hutchinson, a third line would have run direct to

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Henry Hudson, English explorer * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudso ...

and would have given rail access to a portion of territory that lacked it. To the south of Wichita, a line would have run to

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

via Belle Plaine, with a short branch to

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

from the latter place. At Oxford, it would have joined a circular service running Oxford - Winfield - Arkansas City - Geuda Springs- Oxford which would have subsumed a pre-existing little interurban between Winfield and Arkansas City called the Southwestern Interurban Railway of Kansas. The project was a strictly local one, financed with capital raised by selling shares in the cities it hoped to serve. The chief promoters were W. O. Van Arsdale, a Wichita stockbroker who gave his name to the railway's main junction, and George Theis Jnr who was to acquire control and who had an amusement park named after him on the line outside Newton. The city of Wichita was strongly in support, and invested $30 000. Theis, a Wichita capitalist and enthusiast for interurbans, founded the ''Interurban Construction Company'' to build the system.

Construction

Construction began in 1910 on the first long section from Wichita north to Sedgwick. On 19 November 1910 the line from Wichita to Valley Center was officially opened, and service was extended to Sedgwick on 18 December. In 1911, construction began on the Sedgwick to

segment, which was opened on 9 October 1911. With the completion of the line to Newton, work began on the line to

Halstead Halstead is a town and civil parish in the Braintree District of Essex, England. Its population of 11,906 in 2011Hutchinson, but work commenced in April of that year and the first AVI car ran to Hutchinson on 22 December 1915.

Bethel Line

The only other branch operated by the AVI was a short line north from Newton to Bethel College which opened in 1913 and was abandoned in 1925. This was essentially an urban streetcar line nicknamed the ''Bethel Line'' -the city lacked a system of its own. Unfortunately the service always ran at a loss, even after a renovation of the track and the provision of new cars in 1921. In 1923, the company tried to abandon but the Public Utilities Commission of Kansas enforced a continuation order. The AVI appealed this, and the case was heard in the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

in 1927. Judgment was against the company on the grounds that the Bethel Line was an integral part of the franchise conditions granted by the city of Newton, but by then nobody cared much -and the service never resumed.

Downtown access

The interurban passenger services initially used the streetcar systems of Wichita and Hutchinson to access downtown, although these were separately owned. However, a private right of way was constructed into Wichita in 1923. This was very fortunate, because the Wichita streetcars were abandoned in 1933 and the interurban would have had to shut to passengers in that year otherwise. In 1932 the AVI was forced to build its own access to the

Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (CRI&P RW, sometimes called ''Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway'') was an American Class I railroad. It was also known as the Rock Island Line, or, in its final years, The Rock. At the end ...

station at Hutchinson, after the city streetcar company (confusingly called the ''Hutchinson Interurban Railway'') went bankrupt and was scrapped.

End of extension hopes

These downtown extensions were the only ones that the AVI built, and the rest of the original scheme was given up in the Twenties. In 1922 George Theis Jr.,

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

of the AVI, bought out the ''Southwestern Interurban Railway of Kansas'' on his own account, and restructured it as the Arkansas City, Winfield and Northern Railway. This was with the intention of making it part of the AVI system, but the ACW&N was a hopeless enterprise. It had originally opened in 1909 and included in-city electric trolley systems for both Ark City and Winfield, as well as the 14 miles of actual interurban trackage between the two. By mid-1925 though, Arkansas City was dismantling its in-city system and by April 1926, the trackage between the two cities was no longer in use and was being taken up. The last vestige of the ACW&N to operate was the College Hill line of the Winfield city portion of the railway, making its last run in May of 1926. This was just months before George Theis' tragic death on 13 August 1926.

Struggle for business

The interurban was three years younger than the

Ford Model T The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relati ...

automobile, and so always suffered from increasing automobile use. It was also hit by the mechanisation of agriculture in the Twenties, as combine harvesters and tractors reduced the demand for farm workers and so the number of rural travellers. On the other hand, bus competition was patchy and the company actually ran feeder bus services (many other interurbans were crippled by competition from jitney buses). The company responded to declining passenger revenue by raising fares to 3.6 cents a mile -very high for any interurban- but this did not help. On the other hand, freight revenue increased and became very important. The AVI had been projected with freight traffic in mind, exchanged with friendly steam railroads, but initially the emphasis was on LCL (less-than-carload or parcel) freight and on milk, cream and other perishable foodstuffs taken into the cities from farms. Only when roads improved was it feasible for farmers to use trucks to get to market for such items. As time went on, carload freight came to dominate and this was mostly switched through to steam roads. Important commodities were cattle, grain and oil. A large sand and gravel pit was at Forest Park north of Wichita, and the Carey Salt Company opened a deep salt mine just east of Hutchinson in 1923 which was to be the AVI's most important customer. The salt mine proprietors opened a very short switching line in 1923, running from the AVI west of their mine for about south-west to the

at Hutchinson, and incorporated this as a

common carrier A common carrier in common law countries (corresponding to a public carrier in some civil law systems,Encyclopædia Britannica CD 2000 "Civil-law public carrier" from "carriage of goods" usually called simply a ''carrier'') is a person or compan ...

called the ''Hutchinson and Northern Railroad''. This road also owned the mine spur from the AVI line.

Failure

The

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

affected the AVI as it did all interurban lines, and revenues declined owing to the serious economic downturn. As a result, the company entered

receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in ca ...

in 1933. It had well-laid track, so the receiver ordered deferred maintenance but the deterioration resulting damaged the passenger business further. Interurban cars were engineered with relatively soft springing in order to take up irregularities in track with light rails, but once the track decayed the ride could oscillate violently as a result. An evocative description of an interurban ride in the last days: "A ride ... was an experience never to be forgotten. Particularly on the wooden cars the bodies jerked back and forth, and threatened to fly off their trucks every time the cars started or stopped quickly. Windows rattled in their rotting sashes, and interior doors that could no longer close were banging against their warped frames. The gentle rolling motion of earlier years gave way to a violent rocking that made it impossible to keep parcels in their luggage racks, and the rocking in turn was intensified by twisting lurches as one set of wheels passed over a dip in the rails where the ties had rotted." On July 31, 1938, all passenger service on the AVI was abandoned, but the company continued to haul freight using its

electric locomotives An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or gas t ...

and

box motor A box motor, in railroad terminology, is a self-propelled boxcar, normally powered by electricity and running on an interurban railway or a streetcar line. Many box motors were converted from passenger cars on the systems that ran them, with the s ...

s. In November 1939 the line was sold to the

H.E. Salzberg Company H.E. Salzberg Company was a scrap dealer and operator of a group of shortline railroads and bus lines throughout the eastern United States. Headquartered in New York City, the company was primarily in the business of dismantling abandoned railroads ...

, which its name to Arkansas Valley Railway.

Dieselization Dieselisation (US: dieselization) is the process of equipping vehicles with a diesel engine or diesel engines. It can involve replacing an internal combustion engine powered by petrol (gasoline) fuel with an engine powered by diesel fuel, as o ...

came within a year, and the last electric operation was made on October 20, 1940, by a trio of interurban cars held in storage since abandonment of passenger service. Following this run the wires came down and all freight was hauled by diesel. This only lasted a year and a half; in July 1942 the

War Production Board The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Sup ...

requisitioned the line for

scrap Scrap consists of Recycling, recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap Waste valorization, has monetary ...

and the track was mostly torn up. However, the salt mine at Hutchinson still needed rail access so the ''Hutchinson and Northern Railroad'' bought the length of track to there from its property in the city, about . This is still in operation (2020).

Route

Wichita metropolitan

The company offices were at Wichita, and its terminal station was on the north-west corner of West Douglas Avenue and North Waco Avenue. Actually occupying the corner is a seven-storey hotel built by the company, the ''Broadview Hotel''. This historic building is still a hotel, the ''Drury Plaza'', and is in good condition. Included in it, facing Waco near the former passenger terminal (the replacement building on the site of the latter is now occupied by the ''AVI Seabar & Chophouse''), is a wide stone arch with AVI on its keystone and the epigraph ''Freight Station'' above. Freight connections came in from the ''Midland Valley Railroad'' and the ''Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railroad'', both of which terminated at Wichita and so were grateful to the AVI for forwarding freight. The line crossed the Arkansas River, then paralleled McLean Boulevard to cross back over just west of the mouth of the Little Arkansas River. From here it ran to the west end of W Murdock Street in Riverside, where the Botanica station building survives bearing the AVI logo. Then the railway followed Amidon Street to W 13th Street N and then N Perry Avenue, diagonally across Nort Riverside and across the Little Arkansas River at Woodland Park with a station at 21st Street which connected with a streetcar line. From here, it was due north to the ''Santa Fe'' railroad, where Interurban Avenue preserves its course paralleling the railroad. Stops were at 24th Street, 29th Street, Bingham, Walnut Grove (where the company had an amusement park and a siding), Sullivan's Dam, Heller's Grove, Forest Park (here, an industrial spur owned by the AVI ran west to serve a gravel pit), Urbandale, Interurban Place (siding), Van View and Fairfield. Before the AVI built its reserve access to downtown, it used the Wichita streetcar system. The interurban met the end of the latter's 21st Street line near Woodland Park, and ran to a terminal at 1st and Water. The streetcar company strengthened its tracks over this portion to bear the weight of the AVI cars.

Wichita to Van Arsdale

The railway then ran north-west, closely parallel to the ''Santa Fe'', on its west side, to Sedgwick where it veered due north to Van Arsdale. Here the Newton branch had a triangular wye. Stops were at Bide-a-wee, Goodrich (siding), Substation One, Valley Center (siding), Ferguson (siding), Lloyd, Congden (siding), Mahannah, Sedgwick (siding), Seaman, Hall (siding), Bowersox and Briggs (siding). At Valley Center, a triangular wye made a freight connection to the ''St Louis - San Francisco Railroad''.

Newton branch

The Newton branch from Van Arsdale had stops at Royer, Hupp, Theis Park (which was another amusement park run by the company and named after its president, and which had a siding), Nicholson, Sand Creek and Newton. The terminal was on E 5th Street and Main, where the little ''Bethel Line'' streetcar connected for its mile-long (1.6 km) run to Bethel College.

Van Arsdale to Hutchinson

From Van Arsdale, the main line ran due west to Halstead, where it met the ''Santa Fe'' railroad again and followed it on the south side as far as the salt mine, where it turned due west to run to its downtown terminus opposite the ''Rock Island'' railroad station. Stops were at Chapel, Emma Creek, Mission (siding), McNair, Halstead (siding and freight spur), McWilliams, White (siding), Drees, Packston (siding), Armstrong or Lynn (siding), Bell (siding), Dobbin, Burrton (siding, and a triangular wye as a freight connection to the ''St Louis - San Francisco Railroad'' facing south), Fast, Fairview (with Morrison Siding and freight spur), Lassen, Smyth (siding), Masterman, Brandy Lake or Cooper (siding), Kent, Strandberg (siding), Campbell, Hutton, Salt Mine (the line to this did not belong to the AVI) and Strawboard (siding). The terminal station building at Hutchinson survives, and is recognised as of historic importance. The address is 111 East 2nd Avenue. The AVI in Hutchinson forwarded freight to the ''Rock Island Railroad'' and the ''Santa Fe'', but not to the ''Missouri Pacific Railroad'' which is why the salt mine company built the ''Hutchinson and Northern Railroad'' as a connection. The station buildings at Halstead and Burrton also survive.

Operations

Passengers

Passenger operations in, for example, February 1926 were typically on an 90 minute interval, running between Wichita and Hutchinson with the Newton branch having a connecting shuttle meeting at Van Arsdale. The first car out of Wichita was at 6:00, and the last at 23:30 with thirteen runs. From Hutchinson, the first was 6:20, and the last 11:25 also with thirteen runs. A direct Newton to Wichita service left at 00:10, to arrive at 1:20 and with a Hutchinson connection arriving at 1:40. All these ran daily, unchanged on Sundays, but on Mondays to Saturdays a commuter run was made additionally from Wichita to Valley Center and back, leaving at 6:35. The Newton shuttle did not always have connections to both cities at Van Arsdale. There was a total of nineteen runs on the branch each way, including the midnight through special mentioned above. The company did not own trailer cars, and their motor cars were not adapted for multiple-unit operation. The main line run usually took two hours. The Newton branch took 20 minutes. The company advertised baggage accommodations to be the same as available on steam railroads. For rural stops, the conductor-guard on the car sold paper tickets, each of which was printed with a list of stops, dates and fares payable. It was the conductor's job to punch out the relevant start and finish of journey, date and fare collected. Strictly speaking this was a ''Conductor's Cash Fare Receipt'' for a single journey, because it couldn't be purchased in advance and return tickets were not available. Stops within the terminal cities were included in a single fare stage, which in Wichita started or ended at 21st Street where the interurban interchanged with the city's streetcar system. The little Newton to Bethel streetcar line serving Bethel College was a separate operation, and not timetabled with the two main services although it connected with Van Arsdale to Newton cars at the city's terminal station.

Freight

The company in the Twenties advertised a daily express LCL freight service, using its motorised box cars, as well as carload freight trains. However, the operation of the latter was hampered by an inadequate power supply and the voltage between sub-stations sometimes dropped from its expected 625V to as low as 300V. This meant that only short carload trains could be run, or only one car at a time.

Equipment

The passenger cars of the AVI were numbered 1 to 12, and comprised a wide variety. All but one were wooden bodied. Most came from the

St. Louis Car Company The St. Louis Car Company was a major United States manufacturer of railroad passenger cars, streetcars, interurbans, trolleybuses and locomotives that existed from 1887 to 1974, based in St. Louis, Missouri. History The St. Louis Car Company ...

, but the

McGuire-Cummings Manufacturing Company The McGuire-Cummings Manufacturing Company was a streetcar and street-railway equipment builder based in the U.S. state of Illinois. It was originally based in Chicago, but had a subsidiary factory in Paris, Illinois, and in its last years it wa ...

, the

American Car and Foundry Company ACF Industries, originally the American Car and Foundry Company (abbreviated as ACF), is an American manufacturer of railroad rolling stock. One of its subsidiaries was once (1925–54) a manufacturer of motor coaches and trolley coaches und ...

and the

Cincinnati Car Company The Cincinnati Car Company or ''Cincinnati Car Corporation'' was a subsidiary of the Ohio Traction Company. It designed and constructed interurban cars, streetcars (trams) and (in smaller scale) buses. It was founded in 1902 in Cincinnati, Ohio. ...

provided singletons. The American firm's number 12 was considered the best. The St Louis firm also provided motorised box cars for LCL freight. An electric locomotive for hauling freight cars, number 602, was bought from

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

in 1929 and sold on to the

Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad The Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad (reporting mark CNSM), also known as the North Shore Line, was an interurban railroad that operated passenger and freight service over an route between the Chicago Loop and downtown Milwaukee, as w ...

in 1942. Cars number 2, 8 and 9 were sold to Bethel College after the end of passenger service, taken off their trucks and used as overflow dormitory accommodation. How horrible this was still remembered half a century later, by those who had to sleep there. Car number 10 (latterly converted to a freight trailer) became a diner at

Peabody, Kansas Peabody is a city in Marion County, Kansas, United States. It is named after F.H. Peabody, of Boston, former vice-president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Peabody is well known in the region for its Independence Day Celebration ...

. Car number 12, the former pride and joy, became a farmer's chicken coop and feed store at

Bentley, Kansas Bentley is a city in Sedgwick County, Kansas, United States. It is named in honor of the city's founder Orsemus Hills Bentley. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 560. History In 1887, the Kansas Midland Railway was built f ...

, until rescued for the

Great Plains Transportation Museum The Great Plains Transportation Museum is a railroad museum in Wichita, Kansas, United States. Collection The museum's collection includes 6 locomotives and several pieces of rolling stock used on freight and passenger trains. * Atchison, Topek ...

in 1988.

References

External links

Historical photos of Arkansas Valley Interurban Railway
wichitaphotos.org
1935 Rand McNally Standard Map of Kansas
shows railway between Wichita, Newton, Hutchinson
1917 to 1920 railway history
specialcollections.wichita.edu
1913 time card
Great Plains Transportation Museum {{DEFAULTSORT:Arkansas Valley Interurban Railway Defunct Kansas railroads Interurban railways in Kansas