“There were railroads on all the major islands. On many of the islands, there were quite a few. They all originally started based on sugarcane,” said Steven Vendt, Director of Operations and Special Projects for the Hawaiian Railway Society, which runs its trains on the last original railway tracks on Oahu.
The first tracks used to haul sugarcane were laid down in 1881 on the island of Kauai. By 1915, Kauai had over 200 miles of track. On Oahu, the first tracks appeared in 1889, set by the Oahu Rail and Land Company — which provided the link between plantations and the port.
“The plantations would have taken their sugarcane from the fields and brought it to the mill where it was processed. The processed sugar would have then gone on trains to the Oahu Railway, which would have ended up at the port in Honolulu,” said Vendt.
Eventually, the Oahu Rail and Land Company also transported cargo and people. After Japan’s bombing of Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into the Second World War, the Oahu Railway served an arguably more significant function, “running pretty much 24 hours a day, seven days a week, hauling passengers, military personnel, equipment and stuff,” said Vendt.
Hawaii’s history wasn’t always pretty; the first European arrivals brought devastating diseases and the US illegally overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893. But the multicultural islands you experience today are a result of this turbulent story. When you savor a delicious Hawaiian poke or sweet bread, you are tasting the influences of East Asian and Portuguese immigrants who came to work on sugar cane plantations. When you bite into a spam musubi, you are taking a nibble of Hawaii’s World War II legacy — with which the Oahu railroad was also intimately entwined.
Few railroads exist or operate today. On the island of Maui, the six-mile-long Sugar Cane Train operated by the Lahaina, Kaanapali and Pacific Railroad was a popular attraction. But years of efforts to revamp and reopen the railroad failed, and it is now permanently closed. If you want to grasp onto a slice of history, check out the train rides below.