The Arkansas Valley Interurban Railway (AVI) was an interurban railway that operated in Kansas, United States, from 1910 to 1938 for passengers and to 1942 for freight, running between Wichita, Newton, and Hutchinson.Walker, M: SPV's Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America, Prairies West 2002 p. 20 It operated a small fleet of electrically powered passenger and freight equipment. Service was suspended during World War II and never resumed, except on a small portion owned by 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 and expecting to feed freight to the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway and the Midland Valley Railroad, also to Wichita's new transcontinental line the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway when that was finished– it never was.The Historical Guide to North American Railroads Kalmbach Publishing 2000 p. 208
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 to McPherson and finally the Union Pacific Railroad to Salina.
From this line, another one would have run from Van Arsdale Junction (south-west of Newton) to Hutchinson and Great Bend, again closely paralleling Santa Fe lines. From Hutchinson, a third line would have run direct to Hudson 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 via Belle Plaine, with a short branch to Wellington 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 November 19, 1910 the line from Wichita to Valley Center was officially opened, and service was extended to Sedgwick on December.
In 1911, construction began on the Sedgwick to Newton segment, which was opened on October 9, 1911. With the completion of the line to Newton, work began on the line to Halstead, which branched off of the Newton line at Van Arsdale Junction and headed straight west for five miles. This section opened late in 1911.
It was not until 1915 that construction began on extending the Halstead branch another to reach Hutchinson, but work commenced in April of that year and the first AVI car ran to Hutchinson on December 22, 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 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.Records and Briefs of the United States Supreme Court 1927 p. 27
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 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 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 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 1926. This was just months before George Theis' tragic death on August 13, 1926.
Struggle for business The interurban was three years younger than the Ford Model T automobile, and so always suffered from increasing automobile use. It was also hit by the mechanization of agriculture in the Twenties, as combine harvesters and tractors reduced the demand for farm workers and so the number of rural travelers. 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 per 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 Missouri Pacific Railroad at Hutchinson, and incorporated this as a common carrier called the Hutchinson and Northern Railroad. This road also owned the mine spur from the AVI line.Connelly, E. B: Railroad Operations Vol. 2 privately published 2002 p. 225
Failure The Great Depression 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 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 and box motors.
In November 1939 the line was sold to the H.E. Salzberg Company, which its name to Arkansas Valley Railway. Dieselization 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 requisitioned the line for scrap and the track was mostly torn up.Isely, M: Arkansas Valley Interurban: Interurbans Special 19 1955 p. 22
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.Mason, J. E: Wichita Arcadia Publishing, 2012 p. 47 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 North 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),Mason op. cit. p. 125 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.