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53-704: Like the Oahu Railway and Land Company (OR&L), the HCR grew out of a necessity for good transportation (in this case, mainly to serve sugarcane plantations ) at the turn of the 20th century. Though not the first railroad on the Big Island, it was certainly the most ambitious. Its principal backer was Benjamin Dillingham , the businessman who also started the OR&;L, among numerous other Hawaiian companies. In

106-587: A charter member of the HRS and one of its founders worked with others in the early 1970s, nominating the former OR&L mainline from ʻEwa to Nānākuli to the National Register of Historic Places . On December 1, 1975, U.S. Senator Hiram Fong reported that this had been done. Today the tracks are owned by the State of Hawaii, while the HRS is the line's caretaker. The HRS continues to maintain and extend

159-506: A common carrier, the OR&L carried freight, passengers, mail and parcels. For instance, besides sugar and pineapples, the railroad hauled garbage from Honolulu to a dump on the Waiʻanae Coast, sand from Waiʻanae to Honolulu during the development of Waikiki , and served the major military bases: Pearl Harbor , Hickam Field , Barber's Point Naval Air Station , Schofield Barracks , and Wheeler Army Airfield . In 1926, Dillingham built

212-472: A final excursion carrying company President Walter F. Dillingham (Benjamin Dillingham's son), along with numerous guests, departed from Kahuku behind American Locomotive Company steam engine number 70 through 71.4 miles (114.9 km) of countryside back to the Honolulu station. The OR&L was finished after fifty-eight years. The OR&L replaced its railroad with a truck transport operation. Most of

265-488: A new passenger terminal designed by Bertram Goodhue , one of the most famous architects in the country, who had also designed the Honolulu Museum of Art and the C. Brewer Building in a Spanish Mission Revival style that matched that of many other public buildings erected during that era. The OR&L train station was converted to a Honolulu Rapid Transit bus terminal after 1947 (later discontinued), and added to

318-531: A small turntable at Pahoa. Due to stiff competition from motor vehicles, the Glenwood extension was scaled back to Mountain View in 1926. By 1937, HCR had increased its network to 106 + 1 ⁄ 3  mi (171.1 km) of tracks, but Volcano service and the branch line from Olaʻa to Glenwood was abandoned completely on October 29, 1938. While the new Hāmākua line had been extremely expensive to build, and

371-400: A supply of water was ideal for growing sugarcane . Within a couple of years sugarcane plantations were sprouting up in this southwestern part of Oahu. The need for transportation between the harbor and ʻEwa was becoming essential. While Dillingham's dream of large-scale settlement on the ʻEwa Plain would have to wait until the last decades of the twentieth century, his plan for a railroad to

424-550: Is thought today to be a literal one, "many [bird] perches." After 1778, as with most of Hawaii, people from China and elsewhere came to the Hawaiian Islands. The initial Chinese immigrants to Hawaii Island were Punti and landed at Kohala on Hawaii Island. One immigrant in particular, Lau Sung Iu, was Hakka ("the guest people" of China) and came to Hawaii Island in this manner. He was ethnic northern Chinese, tall for his people at around 6 feet (180 cm). In China, he

477-640: The Hakalau Mill , was constructed between 1908 and 1911. The second phase, completed from Hakalau to Paʻauilo in 1912 or April 1913, included two of the longest bridges on the line (the Hakalau Bridge, 775 ft (236 m) long; and the Maulua Bridge, more than 1,000 ft (300 m) long). All the steel bridges were designed by John Mason Young , using steel girders with spans from 66 to 72 ft (20 to 22 m) long. By 1920, with

530-542: The National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The railroad was profitable, even during the Great Depression , and was a significant mode of communications and transportation until the 1930s. As with railroads in the mainland, private automobiles and public roads led to a decline in traffic, especially passengers. Leading up to World War II the OR&L had all but abandoned its passenger operations, focusing on its profitable freight operations. World War II

583-456: The Gay & Robinson Plantation on Kauai remained in operation, as it was non-union privately owned. The strike had a major impact on Hawaii, and OR&L's freight dropped to record lows. Although the OR&L rebuilt the tracks destroyed by the tsunami and continued operations during the strike, the decision was made to shut down the entire operation at the end of that year. On December 31, 1947,

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636-598: The HCR was finally emerging from its long-standing financial troubles, it was hit with a blow from which it never recovered. On the morning of April 1, 1946, a massive tsunami caused by an earthquake in the Aleutian Islands struck Hilo and the Hāmākua coast, devastating the city and instantly wiping out a number of railroad bridges. Shareholders in HCR had already voted in March 1946 to discontinue rail operations. After

689-581: The Hakalau post office, postal code 96710. Located just below the ocean cliff where the Hakalau stream meets the bay, the old sugar mill ruins are still visible. During the 19th century the Hakalau Bay was used to transfer goods and passengers from smaller boats to larger ships. Today, the bay is used mostly by local surfers and fisherman. Hakalau now has a small, day use, county owned park with picnic tables and ocean access for recreational use, located at

742-608: The Hilo Railroad Company (HRC) with his partners Lorrin A. Thurston , Alfred Wellington Carter , and Mark P. Robinson ; HRC received a charter on March 28, 1899 to build the original 8 mi (13 km) of the Hilo Railroad that connected the Olaʻa sugar mill to Waiākea , soon to become the location of Hilo's deepwater port. Under the terms of the charter, HRC was granted the right to build rail lines anywhere on

795-620: The Hāmākua Division complete, HCR boasted a total of 88 mi (142 km) of rail. To extend its existing line from eastern Hilo through Hāmākua, HRC also had to construct steel bridges over the Wailoa and Wailuku Rivers . Because of their near sea-level elevation, they were also vulnerable to rough seas, and were destroyed and replaced in 1923 (Wailoa) and 1924 (Wailuku). The Wailuku River bridge collapsed on March 31, 1923, shortly after one fully-loaded train had passed and just as another

848-479: The Hāmākua Division was still being built, the HRC system was the only standard gauge railway in the territory of Hawaiʻi and the second-longest overall, with 46 + 1 ⁄ 4  mi (74.4 km) of track counted in its main line and branches. The 33.5 miles (53.9 km) Hāmākua Division was an engineering marvel, including the construction of 3 tunnels and 35 large trestle bridges (22 wooden and 13 steel) across

901-571: The Hāmākua Division, including: Information about this railway can be found at the Laupahoehoe Train Museum, located in the old station agent's house. Oahu Railway and Land Company The Oahu Railway and Land Company , or OR&L, was a 3 ft ( 914 mm ) 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

954-428: The OR&L carried nearly two million riders. By the end of the war most of the rolling stock, right-of-way, and facilities were worn out. The company's executives pondered whether or not to continue operations. With the end of hostilities wartime traffic dried up. Moreover, Oahu's road network had been upgraded significantly, and thus for the first time there was serious road competition. The company plugged along for

1007-497: The U.S, until its dissolution in 1947. The OR&L was founded by Benjamin Dillingham , a self-made businessman who arrived in Honolulu as a sailor in 1865. After falling from his horse and breaking his leg while riding in the countryside, Dillingham was forced to stay in Hawaii and recuperate. He decided to make the island kingdom his home. Dillingham had a great deal of business acumen and soon became quite wealthy and influential in

1060-400: The area came together quickly. He leased Campbell's ʻEwa and Kahuku land to start two sugarcane plantations and obtained a government railroad charter from King David Kalākaua on September 11, 1888. After securing the capital, Dillingham broke ground in March 1889 to connect the 12 miles (19 km) between Honolulu and ʻAiea (as demanded in the charter) by fall 1889. On November 16, 1889,

1113-593: The bottom of the Hakalau gulch. The Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge protects 32,733 acres (132.47 km ), located on the Mauna Kea slopes above the town. Located nearby is the World Botanical Gardens (WBGI). Until Captain Cook made contact with Hawaiʻi (1778) the islands were inhabited by Native Hawaiians . The place-name traces to a couple of possible origins, the leading meaning

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1166-658: The bridges, the Territorial Government decided to purchase the remaining bridges from Gilmore for US$ 303,723.53 (equivalent to $ 3,850,000 in 2023) to improve the routing of the Hawaii Belt Road north out of Hilo. One of the only remnants of the railway is the roundhouse built in 1921 in Hilo at coordinates 19°43′12″N 155°4′00″W  /  19.72000°N 155.06667°W  / 19.72000; -155.06667 , just north of Hoʻolulu Park ;

1219-481: The company was financially healthy. However, the company's fortunes would change drastically when Dillingham and other company owners in 1907 petitioned the US Congress and Territory of Hawaii to build a breakwater and improve Hilo Bay 's harbor; at the time, the harbor was not well-protected from seasonal storms and heavy seas. In exchange for those projects, HRC would extend its line north-northwest from Hilo up

1272-619: The cost and timing of the Bayshore Cutoff , which was built by the much larger Southern Pacific Railroad just south of San Francisco. The tremendous expense forced the company into receivership by 1914, and by 1916 it was sold in foreclosure proceedings. The company was reorganized as the Hawaii Consolidated Railway (HCR) in February 1916. The first section, stretching 12.7 mi (20.4 km) from Hilo to

1325-400: The early Honolulu community. Among his development ideas, he conceived in the 1870s of the arid ʻEwa Plain as an excellent location for human settlement. However, there were two problems: a lack of water and, more significantly, a lack of transportation. A trip from Honolulu to the ʻEwa by horse-drawn wagon was an all-day affair. The key was to build a railroad. Around the time Dillingham

1378-466: The group a 1st class coach #47 and an observation car #48, formerly the private parlor car named Pearl . The Kahuku Plantation Co. allowed the group to use their tracks from near Kawela Bay to Punaluu . The group ran excursions infrequently, renting a steam locomotive from Kahuku Plantation. In 1950, the last steam locomotive was retired and the H&;HSL RR then used one of two ex-Navy diesels. In 1954,

1431-544: The island over the next fifty years, and HRC was free to use any government land to do so. The line to Olaʻa Sugar was laid with 60-pound rail using standard-gauge railway . After rail service on the Olaʻa line began on June 18, 1900, work continued apace with a 17 mi (27 km) extension to Kapoho , home of the Puna Sugar Company plantation, completed by March 1902. Immediately after that two branch lines were constructed, also to sugar plantations, and then

1484-585: The island's northernmost tip. Although a circle-island line was proposed, it was never seriously considered. In 1906 an 11-mile (18 km) branch line was constructed from Waipahu up the Waikakalua Gulch to Wahiawa and the pineapple fields of central Oahu. The railroad had taken its final shape. The OR&L was not only a sugarcane railroad. While it served several sugar mills and plantations, it also hauled end products, equipment and workers. The sugarcane plantations sometimes had their own lines. As

1537-428: The king's birthday, the OR&L officially opened, giving free rides to more than 4,000 passengers. By 1892, the line was 18.5 miles (29.8 km) long, reaching ʻEwa sugar mill, home of Dillingham's ʻEwa Plantation Company property. Although progress stalled during the chaos of the late Kingdom and early Republican periods, by 1895 the railroad had passed through what would become the junction of Waipahu , traversed

1590-449: The late 1890s Dillingham acquired approximately 35,000 acres (14,000 ha) of land through purchases and leases worth $ 5 million, southeast of the growing city of Hilo in present day Keaʻau and Puna , which would become his Olaʻa Sugar Company and Puna Sugar Company plantations. The Olaʻa and Puna Sugar plantation mills were approximately 9 and 27 mi (14 and 43 km) from Hilo Harbor, respectively. Dillingham incorporated

1643-630: The line west of that. In addition to the ex-Army flat cars used to haul passengers, three cars are at the Hawaiian Railway Society , Coach #2, excursion car #57, and Benjamin Franklin Dillingham's private coach, parlor car #64. Three cars also sit at Travel Town Museum in Griffith Park , California. Coach #1, combination car #36 and caboose #1, all built circa 1900 at the OR&L shops, were donated to

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1696-474: The local sugarcane plantations , but those were soon abandoned for trucks after December 1948. HCR offered its entire right of way for the bridge-laden Hāmākua division without charge to the Territorial Government and county supervisors, who refused to accept it; HCR sold its entire railroad as scrap to Gilmore Steel & Supply Co. in San Francisco for $ 81,000. After the scrappers started dismantling

1749-507: The most famous and scenic stretches of the railroad. The Navy switched to trucks, and the railroad property was abandoned in 1970. The Oahu Railway & Land Company merged with Hawaiian Dredging to form Dillingham . In that same year a small group of railroad fans on Oahu learned of the abandonment and petitioned the Navy to turn the line and equipment over to them. This body became the Hawaiian Railway Society (HRS) in 1970. Nicholas Carter,

1802-513: The mouths of valleys. The total length of bridges was 12,000 feet (3,700 m), with individual bridges up to 1,006 ft (307 m) in length and 230 ft (70 m) high. 3,200 ft (980 m) of tunnels were built. However, it also was one of the most expensive railroad construction projects per mile in the world at that time, at US$ 106,000 (equivalent to $ 3,350,000 in 2023) per mile, totaling $ 3.5 million (equivalent to $ 111 million adjusted for inflation ), comparable to

1855-706: The museum by the OR&L in 1953. Two diesel locomotives, GE 44-ton switchers numbered 15 and 19, remain in regular use on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad . Hakalau, Hawaii Hakalau is a small unincorporated community located along the Hamakua coast about 15 miles (24 km) north of Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaii at 19°53′49″N 155°7′35″W  /  19.89694°N 155.12639°W  / 19.89694; -155.12639 . The Hakalau Stream flows from

1908-522: The plantation abandoned its railroad in favor of trucks thus ending the H&HSL RR. Due to a lack of money and enthusiasm the group was unable to remove their two coaches from the property, so a plantation official had them torched. The OR&L's Honolulu harbor branch, renamed the Oahu Railway, was used until December 31, 1971 for industrial operations. It served a Kalihi stockyard (until 1961), but chiefly hauled incoming Molokai pineapples from

1961-495: The railroad was extended north into Hilo itself. A chiefly tourist line, branching from Olaʻa, was built in 1901, routed inland 12.5 mi (20.1 km) up the mountain to Glenwood where visitors would then transfer to buses for the remaining 9 mi (14 km) trip to the Volcano House near Kilauea Volcano . At this point the Hilo Railroad's southern section was fairly complete, and with strong sugar-related traffic

2014-481: The remainder of 1945 and into 1946 transporting servicemen. Nevertheless, passenger traffic and gross revenues dropped more than fifty percent. The railroad's fate was sealed by the 1946 Aleutian Islands earthquake and the resulting 55-foot (17 m) tsunami that struck on April 1, 1946. Overlooked by most historians is the fact that from September 1, 1946, through November 18, 1946, 22,000 sugar workers at 33 of Hawaii's 34 sugarcane plantations went on strike. Only

2067-482: The right-of-way while running excursion trains from its station in ʻEwa. Currently, trains are scheduled for Saturday afternoons at 3:00 and Sunday afternoons at 1:00 and 3:00, running past the new Second City of Kapolei , through the heart of the Koʻolina golf resort, and up the Waiʻanae Coast, presently only as far as Kahe Point. However, the tracks east of Fort Weaver Road have been pulled up, so trains can only operate on

2120-458: The roundhouse is listed as one of the most endangered historic sites in Hawaii. As of November 2013, five of the original steel trestle bridges built by HRC have been retained along the Belt Road, albeit with significant modifications under the "Seismic Wave Damage Rehabilitation Project" of 1950. These span: In addition, some bridges were built using materials and foundations salvaged from

2173-419: The rugged Hāmākua coast to service the northern sugarcane plantations.  The new Hāmākua Division, planned from Hilo to Paʻaulio, was funded through the initial issue of bonds, which were authorized not to exceed US$ 2,000,000 (equivalent to $ 65,400,000 in 2023) in 1907, later supplemented by another issue of US$ 800,000 (equivalent to $ 27,130,000 in 2023) for the extension in 1909. In 1910, while

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2226-491: The shorter and linguistically different Punti, who had also immigrated to Hawaii Island. He later became a merchant and opened a store outside of Hilo along the Hamakua Coast. The area where the store was located became a gathering or stopping point along the Hamakua Coast for travelers. The store, and later the area, became known as Hakalau, named after the tall Hakka proprietor and his actual name of Lau Sung Iu, owner of

2279-489: The slopes of Mauna Kea , in the area of 19°48′55″N 155°21′55″W  /  19.81528°N 155.36528°W  / 19.81528; -155.36528  ( Hakalau Stream source ) and flows into the Pacific Ocean . Hakalau was once a thriving, multiethnic sugarcane plantation town up until the early 1960s when the plantation originally called Hakalau Plantation Company began to decline. In 1963 it

2332-441: The system was dismantled in the years following the company's dissolution, although the double-tracked mainline from Honolulu to ʻAiea remained intact until around 1959. Four of the locomotives, 250 freight cars, and a huge quantity of track and supplies were sold to an El Salvadoran railroad in 1950. The Hibiscus & Heliconia Short Line Railroad (H&HSL RR) was formed in 1948 by local rail fans and modelers. Ben Dillingham gave

2385-559: The tsunami, the sugarcane plantations told HCR they intended to start shipping raw sugar to Hilo Harbor by truck; because the cost to repair the destruction was so massive, estimated at US$ 500,000 (equivalent to $ 7,810,000 in 2023), HCR filed for abandonment soon after the tsunami, receiving permission from the Interstate Commerce Commission to do so as of December 31, 1946. Parts of the original Hilo Railway line southeast from Hilo to ʻŌlaʻa were taken over by

2438-924: The wharves to the Libby, McNeil and Libby and California Packing Corporation ( Del Monte ) canning plants. The final section of the line was taken over by the US Navy in 1950. The Navy, especially during the Korean War and the Vietnam War , ran ammunition trains between the West Loch of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, through the ʻEwa Plain, to the Lualualei Naval Ammunition Depot on the Waiʻanae coast, preserving one of

2491-562: The ʻEwa plain, and was skirting the Waiʻanae coast to a sugar mill there. After issuing gold bonds in January 1897 the company extended the railroad around Oahu's rugged Kaʻena Point to Haleiwa on the north shore by June 1897, where Dillingham built a hotel. By December 1898, the main line was complete, stretching past Waimea Bay and Sunset Beach to Kahuku and the Kahuku sugar mill past

2544-635: Was an officer in the Chinese army, involved in one of the many conflicts involving the Qing Dynasty. He and another were smuggling powder across the Yalu River when they were discovered. He was shot and wounded but succeeded in escaping by hiding among the reeds in the river. He was later picked up by an American ship and did odd jobs aboard the vessel for passage. He made his way to Hawaii via Hong Kong. Being Hakka and tall, he attracted attention among

2597-590: Was approaching. In a separate incident, two passenger trains collided on the Maulua bridge on October 22, 1924; one train had stopped to disembark passengers, and the other had just emerged from the longest tunnel on the line. Passenger service over the Hāmākua line was provided by Hall-Scott motorcars pulling passenger trailers. In 1925, HCR ordered three railbuses from the White Motor Company to provide daily passenger service between Puna and Hilo, with

2650-608: Was arguably the OR&L's most important period, but would prove to be the company's undoing. After the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor , the OR&L became a major player in wartime transportation. The railroad carried out its regular freight operations as well as handling massive amounts of military-related traffic. The OR&L became the chief transporter of civilian base workers, sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines, both from Honolulu to their bases, or from those bases back to Honolulu for coveted R&R . In 1944 and 1945

2703-427: Was costly to maintain, it was especially popular with tourists on HCR's Scenic Express service for ships calling at Hilo Harbor. Combined with regular passengers and traffic generated from the numerous sugar mills along the way, the HCR made great strides in paying down its debt. Increased revenue during World War II made the company more prosperous, and HCR was making a profit by the end of 1945. Ironically, just as

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2756-409: Was dreaming of his railroad, another businessman, James Campbell successfully dug ʻEwa's first artesian well in 1879, effectively solving the water problem. Campbell, who had purchased 40,000 acres (16,200 ha) of ʻEwa land thought he might start a cattle ranch , but quickly realized that ʻEwa's rich volcanic soil (which overlays a massive ancient coral reef ) combined with year-round sunshine and

2809-571: Was merged into the Pepeʻekeo Sugar Company , in 1973 merged into the Mauna Kea Sugar Company, and the mill shut down in 1974. Small family farms grow tropical fruits, taro, flowers, coffee, or cattle. Some historic sites remain from the plantation era. The privately owned sugar plantation manager's home, built in the early 20th century, still exists, along with two warehouses built in 1920 and an old theater, operating as

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