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. 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 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 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 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 Newton segment, which was opened on 9 October 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 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 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.