LIHU‘E — An agricultural component where local farmers would plant and tend sugar, taro, bananas, papayas, rambutan and chermoya, is part of a cane-train in Puhi that would be geared toward visitors. Permits necessary for establishment of Kauai Kilohana Partners’
LIHU‘E — An agricultural component where local farmers would plant and tend sugar, taro, bananas, papayas, rambutan and chermoya, is part of a cane-train in Puhi that would be geared toward visitors.
Permits necessary for establishment of Kauai Kilohana Partners’ proposed, 2.5-mile railway excursion system were approved recently by the Kaua‘i Planning Commission.
Now, Kauai Kilohana Partners principals are scouring the globe looking for former Hawai‘i sugar-cane locomotives to bring back to the state.
Perhaps one of the most challenging parts of the project now is the acquisition of trains, said Fred Atkins, Kauai Kilohana Partners general manager.
Kauai Kilohana leaders have been in touch with business interests in the Philippines to try to acquire two, narrow-gauge locomotives for the project.
The two trains, Manana and Halawa, once operated on O‘ahu, but were sold and sent out of the state at a time when sugar companies on O‘ahu began to shut down railway systems in the 1940s and 1950s.
While efforts are ongoing to acquire the two trains from the Philippines, leaders with Kauai Kilohana have located another train in Louisiana that could be used for their project, they said.
The steam-powered train is in Louisiana, where it was used for sugar-plantation operations on the Mainland, and was similar to the type used for sugar operations on Maui, Atkins said.
Efforts are being made to ascertain the locomotive’s history, and to determine where it could have been used in Hawai‘i, Atkins said.
“We really want to bring a Hawai‘i engine back home,” Atkins said.
The commission action opens the way for operation of a commercial railway system that has not been seen on Kaua‘i in 50 years.
The difference is the new system will carry visitors on a short tour of former cane lands. The island’s last trains were used to haul harvested sugarcane.
The new, narrow-gauge train system will allow people to take rides on Kaua‘i’s sugar trains, one of the mainstays of the island’s sugar industry and part of Hawai‘i’s sugar industry that defined the economics of the Hawaiian Islands for 150 years.
During the first 50 years of the 20th century, sugar trains on Kaua‘i meandered through canefields, bringing tons of cane to island mills for processing.
The Kauai Kilohana train system will transport residents and visitors over 2.5 miles of track on the grounds of the Kilohana Plantation and adjacent agricultural lands, totaling 102 acres mauka of Kaumuali‘i Highway in Puhi.
The passengers will get to see agricultural crops that will represent the evolution of Kaua‘i’s agricultural industry, from sugar cane, bananas and papayas to rambutan and chermoya.
During a meeting at the Lihu‘e Civic Center last week, the Planning Commission approved various permits requested by Kauai Kilohana for its proposal, including a special permit, use permit and Class VI zoning permit.
When financing for the project is finalized, groundbreaking for the project could take place in early 2005, said Atkins.
But a former canefield near Kukui Grove Village West near an area known as Rapozo Crossing has already been cleared for planting of various crops riders will be able to see from the train.
The owners of plantation companies began using cane-haul trucks in the middle of the last century because they were cheaper to operate, and allowed for flexibility in the operation of sugar plantations.
At this point, the Kauai Kilohana Partners’ train system will operate from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. daily, with special group tours not to be offered any earlier than 8:30 a.m., Atkins said.
Convention-group gatherings and lu‘au can be held on the Kilohana property from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. daily, Atkins said.
These conditions will remain in effect until company leaders have a connecting road built from the project to the existing intersection of Nuhou Road and Kaumuali‘i Highway, he said.
The new road is expected to enhance the company’s operation, and to help alleviate traffic in Puhi. Once the new road is built and is in operation, the hours of the train will remain about the same, Atkins said.
A Kaua‘i County Planning Department report reflected concerns about traffic congestion at the entrance to Kaua‘i Community College, and by feeder roads to homes in Puhi.
The department report recommended the new road be completed within a year after the Kauai Kilohana permits are approved. The report also recommended more restrictive hours of operation for the train project until the new road is completed.
The project will include a train depot, engine shop and market. Historic buildings will be used to house some of the planned improvements.
The railway is planned to run by a portion of the historic Wilcox home, known as Kilohana Plantation. The building has been placed on the State and Federal Registers of Historic Places.
Atkins said one of the key components of the project will be the development of agricultural plots to exhibit some of Kaua‘i’s top marketable crops of the past and present: sugar, taro, bananas, papayas and guava.
Also on display will be rambutan, cocoa and chermoya, newly emerging tropical crops on Kaua‘i.
“Kauai Coffee (Company) is going to put one to two acres of hybrid coffee, and we are putting in 700 exotic fruit tees,” Atkins said.
Local farmers also are planting papayas and bananas, and by summer, most of the “first phase will be planted out,” Atkins said. Farmers are being sought to grow taro as well.
Atkins said the name of the railway operation, Kauai Plantation Railway, was chosen to reflect sensitivity to Kaua‘i’s agricultural past, and to island residents.
“We are using farmers from different parts of the island, and we want the community to embrace this,” he said. “Old-timers want to volunteer. We want to make it for the community first, and the visitors will find it.”
Staff Writer Lester Chang may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net.
