Wheat Belt Route is the story of the hard-luck Wichita Northwestern Railway, originally known as the Anthony & Northern. This little railroad with big aspirations chuffed across the prairies of southwest Kansas for only 28 years, from 1912 to 1940. However, in its brief life, the WNW became a regional legend for its grit and determination in moving wheat and other farm products.
Filled with many rare photographs, Wheat Belt Route covers the WNW's oddball fleet of passenger rail motorcars, the many ghost towns it once served and a mystery involving a submerged steam locomotive as well as describing Great Plains railroading during the adverse depths of the Dust Bowl era. The locomotive fleet consisted primarily of former Rock Island and Santa Fe Eight-wheelers and Ten-wheelers.
This railroad ran from a connection with the Rock Island at Pratt, Kansas to Trousdale, Kansas where the line branched to Kinsley and Larned, Kansas and connections with the Santa Fe.
Contents:
History, pp. 7-12,
Locomotives, pp. 13-22,
Depots, pp. 23-28,
Facilities, pp. 29-38,
Rolling Stock and Cabooses, pp. 39-44,
Motorcars, pp. 45-52,
Passenger Operations, pp. 53-56,
Freight Operations, pp. 57-62,
Maintenance of Way, pp. 63-72,
The Kansas & Oklahoma, pp. 73-78,
Epilogue, 79-87,
Notes for Modelers, pg. 88,
Equipment Rosters, pp. 89-91,
Bibliography, pg. 92.
Includes Map and Timetable reproductions, nice maps of Pratt and Larned, Kansas.
South Platte Press, softcover, 92 pages, standard portrait book 8 x 10 in., Black-and-White photographs and illustrations.
