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On August 1, 2014, during the first day of the Wilcox Family reunion in Kauai that I attended, my aunt along with some cousins got to organize an event with the Grove Farm Museum's Historical locomotive that runs on 1,800 feet of the original Lihue Plantation Railroad Right-Of-Way. This was really fun because this is the only authentic sugar plantation steam train experience in the state. In this video, you will see engineer Scott Johnson getting the train ready for it's trip, some rail switching, the train attaching to the sugar cane cars, and parts of the trip, including the train crossing over a stone bridge that is over one hundred years old. Information about some of the history of the locomotives you will see to follow:
Wainiha: This is the locomotive that they used on this trip. This is a Baldwin 0-6-2T that weights 28 tons and was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1915. It was built for the McBryde Sugar Company, and then bought by Grove Farm in 1956. On September 24, 1957, it was the last steam locomotive to haul sugar cane to the mill in Hawaiian Sugar history. It is named "Wainiha" which is a stream on the North Shore of Kauai. It was restored by Miss Mabel Wilcox in 1975. This locomotive pulled 50 to 60 sugar cane cars alone, and was featured in the 2000 World War II movie "To End All Wars."
Paulo: You will see this locomotive a little after the beginning being pushed back to the shed. "Paulo" is the oldest surviving plantation locomotive in Hawaii today. It was manufactured at the Hohenzollern Works in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1887, and shipped to the Koloa Sugar Company. It was named after Mr. Paul Isenberg who's the owner of Lihue Plantation and a officer of the Koloa Sugar Company. This locomotive weights 10 tons and can pull 50 tons of sugar cane. It was in use until 1920, and then restored by the Grove Farm Museum in 1981. This train also made an appearance in the 2000 film "To End All Wars."
Interesting enough, both of these locomotives were almost bought by Disney for $500 a piece, before Miss Mabel Wilcox decided to buy them and restore them to what they are today.
If you would like to ride one of these authentic sugar cane trains, Grove Farm does a monthly "fire" up every second Thursday of the month. It is free of charge.
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