Rock Island Railroad

Rock Island Railroad. . , June 1886 - The Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern RR (BCR&N) was contracted to build a Short Rail Line to Waverly from its main north-south line. The Short Line would run from what became known as Waverly Junction, approximately 5 miles southwest of Waverly in Jackson Township, south of Shell Rock. The line entered Waverly at 4th St. and 8th Ave. SW, north of Harlington Cemetery. The rails ran eastward, cutting diagonally to cross the Dry Run on a wooden trestle at 7th Avenue SW, crossing 1st Street SW, and running northward along the Cedar River toward Bremer Avenue. The tracks stopped at the original red wood-framed BCR&N Depot (where the Farmers Exchange Co-op office would eventually be built in the 1930s). The Rock Island Railroad Company, which had leased the BCR&N Short Line in 1901, purchased it outright in 1902. Officially known as the Rock Island Waverly Short Line, it was colloquially called "The Stub.", In September 1904, 12 trains, both passenger and freight, arrived and departed daily (except on Sundays). The trains delivered lumber, "Oriental" carpets, high quality livestock, including rare breeds of horses such as Belgians and Percherons. Horse-drawn wagons called "drays" carted goods from the trains to local merchants. Due to a fire at Knott's Livery on Bremer Ave., the railroad company purchased that land, to extend the tracks two blocks northward from the original depot. , In 1905, railroad agent Alson L. Philieo received news that a new passenger depot would be designed and built. Completion of that structure in June 1910 resulted in designation of the old depot as the Rock Island freight depot., In the 1920s, due to the rise of automobiles, business on the Short Line had dropped to five trains arriving and departing daily. By the 1930s the Great Depression further worsened the financial situation of the Rock Island Company. Running in the red, it cost the Short Line 45 cents per mile to operate, but returns amounted only to 23 cents per mile. Of that 23 cents, passenger traffic brought in only 5.5 cents per mile. At a Bremer County Courthouse hearing, the Rock Island RR proposed removing passenger service but continuing freight service "under advisement," going so far as to propose the possibility of hauling passengers and freight on the same train. Waverly protested, claiming the city had a valid passenger contract with the railroad dated from 1886. A compromise led to minimal passenger service resuming for a few years, but by the beginning of World War II, passenger service declined even further. In April 1943, what the Bremer County Independent newspaper described as "the business railway waiting room in Waverly" was empty. There was "no longer any passenger business out of Waverly over that line.", By the 1950s, the national trend was replacing steam with the more efficient the mid 1950s as diesel engines. The lonesome sound of the Short Line steam whistle faded in blared into Waverly's service. In January 1959 train service on the Short Line operated only three times a week, and the freight station shut its doors. Abandonment ensued. The City of Waverly made an offer for the land, and went on to build a park in 1968.