For awhile now there has been an ongoing debate about building a new light rail system on Oahu. We have some pretty ridiculous traffic over here. Basically, there are a lot of jobs in Town (aka Honolulu) and not so many jobs in other parts of the island so a whole lot of people commute. In the morning all the traffic is heading toward town and in the evening it's all headed out. Our freeway infrastructure is pretty lousy and has some major bottlenecks that create huge traffic jams. Other arteries and surface streets are much as you would expect in any other major metropolitan area during rush-hour: slow and treacherous. The freeway, however, is more like a parking lot. So, there has been a lot of talk about how to alleviate that traffic congestion and a rail system is one of the possibilities. There is always a lot of argument both for and against and it always gets shot down. Well, until recently. Now it's supposed to be built, but the nae sayers are still fighting it. Chief reasons of dissent are typically cites as cost inefficiency and system ineffectiveness (i.e. rail would not alleviate congestion). Of course, there are many ways that a train system could be a great success or an even greater failure and it's tough to know what would really happen. There are so many special interests involved (and probably a lot of corruption as well), so who knows how this thing would work out. Another big debate is where to put it. Space is very limited which is part of the reason for congestion. There isn't much space to expand infrastructure and there is more or less only one route to get anywhere due to the giant, jagged, impassible mountains that make up the center of the island.
I have included two articles in this post. One was a recent entry in an issue of AAA Hawaii about the history of the railway in Hawaii entitled, "Iron Giants." Unfortunately, there were a lot of cool vintage pictures and various diagrams in the magazine that were not published online. The second article is an editorial piece from the latest issue of the Honolulu Weekly written by a professor of Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Hawaii. It's the best argument that I've seen to date that is anti-rail and actually seems to have been based off actual scientific data. I've always been a proponent of the rail, but I know how government can muck things up and I'm afraid they'll do a half assed job. If it isn't built right it will be worthless. We'll see what happens. Change (usually) occurs very slowly in Hawaii...
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Iron Giants Lovingly tended, some of Hawai‘i’s railroad history lives on By Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi AAA Hawai'i May/June 2012 |
Whether they carried cargo or passengers, trains in Hawai‘i at the turn of the last century inspired awe and wonder. For some 90 years, trains were as familiar a sight in the Islands’ landscape as rainbows and coconut palms, until emerging technologies and changing lifestyles brought upon the end of that era.
“Unfortunately, the significant role railroads played in the economic development of Hawai‘i is not well publicized or much appreciated today,” says Jeff Livingston, historian of the Hawaiian Railway Society, an O‘ahu-based nonprofit educational organization dedicated to saving, restoring, and protecting the Islands’ railroad history.
Laying Track
Thanks to the Society’s efforts and a handful of vintage trains (see “All Aboard!” below), new generations are rediscovering the state’s rail heritage. “The last vestiges of O‘ahu’s plantation, common carrier, and military railroads are at the Hawaiian Railway Society,” Livingston says. “We’re trying to not only keep this history alive, but to add to the existing knowledge base through research, oral histories, and collections activities.
“Sugar plantations were the first to use trains in Hawai‘i,” Livingston continues. “They were followed by common carriers, which transported passengers and freight and were key to the expansion of business and commerce.”
Negotiated under King Kalākaua, the Reciprocity Treaty allowed virtually all products grown in Hawai‘i, including sugar, to enter U.S. markets duty-free between September 9, 1876, and June 14, 1900. Sugar plantations sprouted throughout the Islands as ambitious entrepreneurs realized fortunes could be made in cane.
Plantation owners needed a fast, efficient, and economical system to transport workers and tools to the fields, cane harvests from the fields to mills, raw sugar from mills to ports for shipping to the Mainland, and supplies and equipment from ports to the plantations. Trains were the answer.
In August 1878, Kalākaua signed An Act to Pro-mote the Construction of Railways, which literally put Hawai‘i’s train industry on a roll. Privately operated plantation railroads ranged in size from one locomotive, a handful of cars, and a few miles of track to nine locomotives, close to 1,200 cars, and more than 90 miles of track. At one time, up to 47 sugar plantations operated their own rail systems. At the peak of Hawai‘i’s sugar industry in the late 1930s, 28 plantations ran trains on about 900 miles of track. (As smaller plantations folded or were taken over by larger plantations, the number of individual railroads declined, although the overall number of locomotives, cars, and track mileage increased, according to Henry F. Bonnell’s Hawaiian Rails of Yesteryear.)
The 1878 railway act also prompted the introduction of common carriers. Seven public rail companies operated on O‘ahu, Maui, Kaua‘i, and Hawai‘i Island. The first, Kahului & Wailuku Railroad (later simply the Kahului Railroad), launched service between those two Maui towns on July 20, 1879.
Common carriers and plantation trains flourished throughout the first half of the 20th century. But after World War II, paved roads and the shift to cars, buses, and trucks caused the local railroads’ demise. A devastating 1946 tsunami shut down Hawai‘i Island’s Hawai‘i Consolidated Railway (HCR). Lines were dis-mantled, and locomotives were scrapped or sold to plantations elsewhere.
Thankfully, Hawai‘i’s amazing railroad history survives. Here are three sagas.
The Fortunate Accident
If Benjamin Franklin Dillingham hadn’t fallen off a horse in Honolulu in 1865, a significant chapter in Hawai‘i’s railroad history would not have been written. Then 20 years old, the Cape Cod native had signed on as first mate for the bark Whistler. After breaking his leg in the riding mishap, he stayed on O‘ahu to recuperate.
Dillingham became a successful entrepreneur, founding, among other businesses, the O‘ahu Railway & Land Company (OR&L) in 1889. OR&L closed its main line in 1947, but served canneries and slaughterhouses around the Honolulu Harbor area until 1972. OR&L performed its greatest service in the frenzied aftermath of the Pearl Harbor bombing of December 7, 1941—shuttling troops, construction workers, supplies, and ammunition round-the-clock between Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, Barbers Point, and Schofield Barracks. For months, its engines operated at night with only blackout lights; passenger cars were kept pitch-black.
A don of Honolulu’s high society, Dillingham built a personal coach, Parlor Car 64, in 1900, which featured a galley, frosted glass lavatory windows, individual cushioned chairs, a large rear observation platform with fluted awnings and ornate brass grillwork, and a gleaming interior of oak, mahogany, and bird’s-eye maple. Many dignitaries rode in this car, including Secretary of War William Taft in July 1905, five years before he was elected President of the United States.
Cursed by the Gods?
American Sugar Company (ASC) on Moloka‘i and Maunalei Sugar Company (MSC) on Lāna‘i were two of Hawai‘i’s shortest-lived railroads. The former was established in early 1898 and was defunct by 1900; the latter was founded in August 1899 and was out of business by March 1901.
Although records for both companies are sketchy, their failure has been attributed to a lack of quality water, resulting in cane with poor sugar content. There may, however, be another explanation. While building the plantations’ railroads, workers used stones from ancient heiau for the roadbeds. Moreover, ASC’s tracks went directly through one of those sacred sites. In the eyes of native Hawaiians, this sacrilege angered the gods, so they were not surprised the sugar operations were doomed.
Both railroads ran about 6 miles. ASC’s line went from its mill to the dock in Kaunakakai. The company ordered two locomotives, only one of which was received and used. ASC never produced a crop, and after it shut down, the locomotives were sold to Honolulu Sugar Company and ‘Ewa Plantation on O‘ahu.
MSC’s railroad skirted the eastern shoreline between Keōmuku, where the company’s mill was being built, and a wharf at Halepalaoa, where one harvest of cane was shipped for processing at Olowalu Mill on Maui. MSC’s rail service primarily involved moving equipment and supplies for construction of the mill, which was never completed.
Visitors can see the rusted, eroded remains of the company’s sole locomotive and the wheel bases of four cars, sprinkled with sand and silt in a tangle of overgrown kiawe at Halepalaoa. The Lāna‘i Culture & Heritage Center is spearheading a stewardship program to clear the mill and train sites and to protect them from further damage.
A Visual Masterpiece
When Hawai‘i Consolidated Railway’s (HCR) $3.5 million Hāmākua Division opened on Hawai‘i Island in 1913, it held the dubious distinction of having construction costs of $106,000 per mile ($2,410,000 in today’s dollars)—the highest in the world at the time. Five years in the making, the 33.5-mile route headed north from Hilo to Pa‘auilo, most of it hugging sheer, rugged oceanfront cliffs.
This engineering feat required three tunnels, 29 timber trestles, and 13 steel bridges, with all but one rising more than 100 feet and the longest stretching 1,006 feet. Nineteen miles from Hilo, one of the railroad’s most dramatic sections cut through hills via a half-mile-long tunnel, then traversed Maulua Gulch via a high curved trestle.
HCR executives hoped the line, with 211 water crossings and an average elevation of 250 feet above the Pacific, might attract visitors in addition to serving the area’s nine sugar plantations. In 1920, the company spent $32,700 on three new passenger coaches—one designated a first-class car with carpeting, electric lights, an observation compartment, 40 comfortable wicker armchairs, and dishes and utensils for 30 lunch guests.
Priced at $1 per person, the July 17, 1921, menu included consommé; boiled tongue; potato salad; pot roast; mashed potatoes; cabbage; string beans; pie; oranges, bananas, and other seasonal fruits; bread and butter; and tea and coffee.
Whenever cruise ships docked at Hilo, HCR ran special “Scenic Express” excursions. At least a dozen stops were made so patrons could disembark and take in the view, which encompassed the ocean, mountains, waterfalls, cane fields, sugar mills, plantation villages, and riotous tropical greenery. Much of today’s Highway 19 was built over the roadbed and trestles of HCR’s Hāmākua Division line, giving today’s motorists the opportunity to ooh and aah at panoramas that train travelers of yesteryear enjoyed.
All Aboard!
These sites recapture and celebrate Hawai‘i’s golden age of railroading Laupāhoehoe Train Museum, Hawai‘i Island
Laupāhoehoe Train Museum
Twenty-six miles north of Hilo, the nonprofit Laupāhoehoe Train Museum is housed in the former home of the station agent for Hawai‘i Consolidated Railway’s Laupāhoehoe Train Station. Exhibits include a model train room; a boxcar and a diesel engine dating back to the early 1900s; and the wye, the area where the direction of a train’s engine was switched. Adult admission $6. 1-808-962-6300.
Sugar Cane Train, Maui
Its official name is the Lahaina-Kā‘anapali & Pacific Railroad, but everyone knows it by its nickname—the Sugar Cane Train. An authentic reproduction of trains that once hauled cut cane from West Maui fields to mills from 1890 to around 1950, it runs on a 6-mile track built between the resort areas of Lahaina and Kā‘anapali.
The highlight of the train’s weekday trips is a 325-foot curved wooden trestle that reveals spectacular views of the West Maui Mountains, Lāna‘i, Moloka‘i, and, from December through April, humpback whales cavorting offshore. Along the way, passengers also enjoy narration and Hawaiian tunes sung by the ‘ukulele-playing conductor. Adult fare $22.95. 1-808-661-0080.
Kaua‘i Plantation Railway
Powered by Nui, a 1942 diesel-electric locomotive, Kaua‘i Plantation Railway’s train chugs along a 21/2-mile track around Kilohana Plantation’s 105-acre agricultural park. Four passenger cars can seat 140. Designed after those built during King Kalākaua’s reign, they are mounted on 1940s flatcars from the O‘ahu Railway and Land Company. Basic adult fare $18; lunch and lu‘au packages available at extra cost. 1-808-245-7245.
Hawaiian Railway Society, O‘ahu
The Hawaiian Railway Society’s Sunday train rides travel along 61/2 miles of restored O‘ahu Railway & Land Company (OR&L) track that runs from ‘Ewa to Nānākuli (below). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this is the last operational original track from Hawai‘i’s railroad era. One of two 1944 ex-Navy diesel-electric locomotives pulls the train. Built upon modified 1940s ex-Army flatcars, the six open-air passenger cars are loosely based on those used by OR&L. Rides in Benjamin Dillingham’s restored Parlor Car 64 are offered on the second Sunday of each month.
Freight cars and passenger coaches dating back to the early 1900s are among the exhibits in the open-air museum next to the train station. Adult fare $12; Parlor Car 64 $25 (funds go toward continued maintenance). 1-808-681-5461.
Train Day, Kaua‘i
On the second Thursday of each month, Grove Farm fires up one of its four 19th-century wood-fueled steam locomotives and offers free rides along 2,000 feet of original Lihu‘e Plantation track that dates to 1891. Coal-black workhorses of the past Paulo, Wainiha, Kaipu, and Wahiawa are all on the National Register of Historic Places. Free. 1-808-245-3202.
Honolulu-based Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a regular contributor to AAA Hawai‘i.
Mauka to Makai
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