As a Louisiana native and have lived in Baton Rouge twice in my life, I can comment on La cane growing. Sugar cane is grown in rows similar to corn. It is planted and cultivated in a 4-year span. During harvesting the field was burned which does not harm the sugar stalk or sugar content. The plants were cut with machetes a few inches above the ground. The stalks were loaded onto wagons and taken to a reload where the stalks were transferred to rail cars or highway trailers for the trip to the mill where the stalks were unloaded, crushed for the juice, and the juice was processed into raw sugar. Each field is grown for 3 years then plowed up and left to fallow or rest for a year before being replanted. The cane will sprout from the stubs for the next year's crop. In the early years, there were many plantation lines that used portable track panels in the fields and more or less permanent tracks to bring the cane to the mill. Raw or brown sugar was then shipped by a common carrier to a refinery for bleaching and grinding. Most of these lines were 3-foot gauge with a few using 2-foot gauge or 30-inch gauge. Because of many very serious accidents on the state highways from decrepit trucks and trailers, their use was outlawed around the 1990s, and the accident numbers dropped while the sides of the highways were not as fouled with strewn cane falling off the trucks. This time of harvest is called a "campaign" from late September into January because once started it does not stop. Because most of the land used for cane production is low-lying, it is also very flat with low ditches along the sides. Check out "Down Among the Sugar Cane" if you can find a copy. The LSU extension service has devised machinery to plant and harvest cane without having to burn the fields. Another good book about sugar cane railroads is the one about Hawaii's railroads.

What you did with the rope shards gives me an idea for what to fill the sugar cane cars with for the load.

Queensland in Australia has really cool sugar cane locomotives (now diesel) that are narrow-gauge. Rolling stock includes sugar cane wagons, open wagons, vans, open-air coaches and radio-controlled brake wagons. Franna cranes are used to lift derailed engines and wagons.

Thanks for diversifying the hobby! A refreshing take on model railroading.

Jim, I loved your video and am sharing it with the other model railroaders here on Kauai, Hawaii. It has some good techniques we can use in modeling Hawaiian sugar cane plantations & operations. The Grove Farm Museum here on Kauai still has a large collection of steam locomotives used in sugar plantation work. Although not specifically mentioned in your video, a couple of the historic sugar mill photos in the video look an awful lot like a couple of specific mills here in Hawaii? Tom Knapp

Raw talent, love your work👍 I grew up in Trinidad W.I., where we had a quint network of small diesel locomotives and carriages in our sugar cane industry, that ran for many years, until the late 1990s when it eventually, was sadly discontinued, your railway model, with the sugar cane and tropical foliage, is an excellent depiction of how it actually looks, can't wait to see more😊

This video did provide some insight on how to model more tropical climates! Great stuff for sure. I primarily model Florida railroads and I can use what I learned here to help me better model what I am working on. Thank you!

The tropics are great! No prototypes , just go gonzo.

Dave, you should come to Costa Rica, in the Guanacaste area, there is one of the largest Sugar Mills in the whole Central America. it produces around 2 million 50lbs sacks of sugar a year!

In Cuba can be found a most fascinating variety of motive power and rolling stock of many different track gauges and some of very interesting and quirky design. Locomotives from the UK and Germany as well as the USA are evident.

Central Florida is still has a large Sugar Cane industry. The US Sugar Corp, has been opperating a railroad for many many years. If you hit their website you can see what locomotives they have currently. USSC has a significant Steam Operation in the 30' through the late 50" and three of the locomotives from that era still exist. There are three light 4-6-2 Pacifics that exist. The 148 has recently returned to the USSC and is under restoration to eventually become operational again for excursions. The 153 and 113 are also light pacifics and they are on display (static currently) at the Gold Coast Railroad Museum in Miami, FL next to the Metro Zoo. Both these loco's were operational up into the early 90's and then retired. Numerous attempts to bring one of these back to operational status has been attempted, but funding (lack of) stalled the efforts. Anyway, there are significant US operations that can be modeled as either a steam operation or more current.

Odd place to find a Canadian flag. I enjoyed this allot Dave, Thank you

That was great Dave. I live and grew up in central Florida where as a kid I remember miles and miles of sugar cane fields south of Lake Okeechobee. You could feel the heat from the flames when they burned the left over foliage (I think) for miles it seemed. I recently uploaded my first train video so take a look if you get a chance. Thanks! Cheers, Dan

Ive been eyeing the Rio dos Flores in Brazil for a number of years

Hi! Thanks for your video! I would like to know (for a project I'm working on) what a repair car for a narrow gauge railway in the Dominican Republic would have looked like in 1945-1950. Do you have any idea?

Hi, I'm wondering if you could elaborate more on making the cane for O scale and what you found out for it? THANKS

hawaii had its last sugar run last year.

I thought they were still using steam locomotives in Cuba these days.

I new to your chanal

An indonesia java

21:12 well technically sugar cane is a cash crop. So it might be worth $1,000,000.00.

Dave looks great have you checked out Cane SIG Zelmeroz.com