• Cane train return
Cane train return
Narrow-gauge cane trains were once a common sight on Kaua’i. Miles of the narrow-gauge track, some only 24 inches wide, ran between and out of Kaua’i’s sugar plantations. Most plantations had their own railroad system, with portable tracks laid out in fields, feeding a main line that brought the cut sugar cane to mill, replacing slowly-moving oxen teams.
The federal government’s plans to build a deep-water harbor at Nawiliwili was proposed in the early 1900s. Part of the agreement was the joining together of the island’s cane train tracks so if necessary military ammunition and other material could be move rapidly from the port to towns along the coast of Kaua’i.
The advent of cane haul trucks brought about a gradual phasing out of cane trains. The trucks were more flexible in the fields, carried more per haul and moved faster than the cane trains. By the early 1960s most of the cane train lines were shut down.
Grove Farm Homestead Museum has conserved cane train locomotives and cars over the past decades, fulfilling the wish of the late Misses Mabel and Elsie Wilcox. Now trainmaster Scott Johnson and his crew have set down track that runs through the a valley that’s at the center of Lihu’e. Soon an actual period locomotive will be occasionally running down the track, following a route that hasn’t been run in a long time.
Another cane train may soon be running, this time south of Lihu’e. Fred Atkins at the Kilohana Estate is hoping to have a cane train run through former cane fields in the near future. His plan focuses on locating a former cane train locomotive from Hawai’i that’s said to be in the Philippines. Sugar cane mill builders like Honolulu Iron Works once exported Hawai’i technology in building sugar cane mills in the Philippines, Taiwan, Cuba and other tropical areas where cane was grown commercially.
This renewed interest in the sugar cane trains of yore is good news. By bringing the cane trains back to life the youth of today, older local residents and visitors will get a taste of old Kaua’i.
Not everyone is sad that the strong scent of molasses and milled sugar that emanated from the Lihue Plantation mill is gone. Those that do miss the smoke and smell and life that was Lihue Plantation will be happy that at least one facet of sugar cane plantation world will be returning to the Lihu’e area.
While the Grove Farm train is likely to be a limited run, the Kilohana train should prove to be as popular as the Ka’anapali train that’s been running on Maui for decades. Kilohana, and Kaua’i, are sure to benefit economically from this attraction, and the renewed interest in sugar cane trains could lead to an even bigger revival.
This extra effort involved in reestablishing cane train tracks and running locomotives being made by Bob Schleck at Grove Farm Homestead Museum and Fred Atkins at Kilohana is to be congratulated.
