The Kauai Plantation Railway is a

heritage railroad A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...

on the island of

Kauai Kauai, () anglicized as Kauai ( ), is geologically the second-oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (after Niʻihau). With an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), it is the fourth-largest of these islands and the 21st largest island ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. Built in 2006 and opened in January 2007, the railroad operates on a long track within the Kilohana Plantation and offers passenger rides around the plantation, pulled by a 1940s diesel locomotive. It was the first new railroad to be built on the Hawaiian islands in 100 years. The railway was designed and built as part of a larger project to bring tourists to the Kilohana Plantation, and the train travels through a variety of agricultural areas intended to showcase the variety of agriculture in Hawaii. Initial plans called for two antique

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

s from

Oahu Oahu () (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering place#Island of Oʻahu as The Gathering Place, Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over t ...

to pull trains, but due to the significant cost of restoration, vintage

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...

s bought from the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

are used instead.

History

Previous railroads on Kauai

The first railroad on Kauai opened in 1881. Plantations on the island soon developed a network of 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) gauge railways which transported harvested

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

for processing and export. The last of these was replaced by truck transport in 1959.

Formation and construction

The Kilohana Plantation is centered on a mansion originally built for Hawaiian business magnate Gaylord Wilcox in 1935. The property was taken over by Fred Atkins in 1986, establishing a restaurant and making the mansion available for events. This business model was a success until

Hurricane Iniki Hurricane Iniki ( ; Hawaiian: ''iniki'' meaning "strong and piercing wind") was the most powerful hurricane to strike Hawaii in recorded history. Forming on September 5, 1992, during the strong 1990–1995 El Niño, Iniki was one of eleven Centr ...

struck the island in 1992. The plantation was shut down for a year, and business did not return at similar levels when it reopened. Atkins decided to change his business model in 2003, adding significant and varied agriculture within the plantation's land to demonstrate the techniques of smaller farmers. As part of the change in business model, Atkins and the other owners of the Kilohana Plantation announced plans to construct a new long heritage railroad in January 2004, initially planning to use steam locomotives which formerly operated on

. The island's planning commission approved the project in March 2004. Per a report in the ''

Honolulu Star-Bulletin The ''Honolulu Star-Bulletin'' was a daily newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the second largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaii (after the ''Honolulu Advertiser''). ...

'', at the start of construction, "Nobody in the crew knew how to build a train track", but this was solved by visits from a consultant from the U.S. mainland who advised on construction techniques. Following the installation of 7,920 ties, 1,056 rails, and 31,680 spikes, over eight months in 2006, it opened to the public in January 2007. The planned steam locomotives were acquired from their location in the Philippines and brought to California, but lacking the $300,000 per locomotive in restoration costs, train operations began with two small diesel locomotives, including a 1939-built

Geo D. Whitcomb Company The Geo D. Whitcomb Company was founded by George Dexter Whitcomb (1834–1914), of Chicago, Illinois, who started a modest machine shop in 1878, and began the manufacture of coal mining machinery, laying the foundation for the concern that beca ...

switcher, and a 1948-built

GE 25-ton switcher The GE 25-ton switcher (also known as a 25-tonner) is a model of diesel-electric switcher locomotive that was produced by GE Transportation at their Erie, Pennsylvania, facility between 1941 and 1974. Most examples were produced for industrial ...

. The Kauai Plantation Railway was "Hawaii's first new railroad to be built in 100 years". While intended as a tourist attraction, by July 2007, Atkins reported that approximately 40 percent of riders were instead Hawaiian residents, which came as a welcome surprise to the railway.

Operations and equipment

The Kauai Plantation Railway offers several train rides around the plantation. The trains pass through a variety of fields and orchards that grow fruit for the plantation, along with animals such as pigs, goats, and donkeys. In addition to a basic train ride, the railroad also offers an "adventure tour", where the train stops and passengers disembark to feed animals and visit a nearby valley. Trains are primarily pulled by the railroad's 25-ton switcher, and passengers ride in four passenger cars, each with a capacity of 36. The cars are named after Hawaiian rivers, and were ordered from the Philippines to a similar design as that of passenger cars once used by

King Kalākaua King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

Hawaiʻi Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

. The railway has both enclosed passenger cars and a car with open sides. The passenger cars sit on six flatcars originally built in 1941 at

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...

by the U.S. Navy, which were then used by the

Oahu Railway and Land Company The Oahu Railway and Land Company, or OR&L, was a narrow gauge common carrier railway that served much of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, and was the largest narrow gauge class one common carrier in the U.S, until its dissolution in 1947. Origin T ...

and afterwards sold to

White Pass and Yukon Route The White Pass and Yukon Route (WP&Y, WP&YR) is a Canadian and U.S. Class III narrow-gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway, Alaska, with Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon. An isolated system, it has no direct connection to any other railr ...

in Alaska.

References

External links