COURTESY HAWAIIAN RAILWAY ALBUM
Just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, locomotive No. 2 was captured at Waialua Plantation with VICTORY chalked on the front. Photograph by Grant Oakes. CLICK FOR LARGE
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All aboard!
PORTFOLIO
Burl Burlingame
Star-Bulletin
HERE'S THE third volume of the "Hawaiian Railway Album" photobook series, a collection that exists purely by serendipity. The first and second volumes largely grew out of the personal archives of Victor Norton, a sailor stationed at Pearl Harbor during World War II. A railroad buff, Norton photographed many of Hawaii's trains during a period when they were not only busiest, but when photography was discouraged by military authorities. A chance discovery of Norton's negatives by Hawaiian Railway Society volunteer Gale Treiber led to their publication more than a half-century later.
The first book focused mainly on the Oahu Railway and Land Company trains. This volume deals primarily with narrow-gauge plantation railways on Oahu, the little, hard-working donkeys that hauled cane and workers around the fringes of the island. Norton's collection was a bit sparse in this area, so Treiber, using contacts in the Railway Society, dug up other images from other photographers, notably Bill Blewett, a Marine Corps military policeman stationed at Ewa, near the heart of Oahu sugar production.
COURTESY HAWAIIAN RAILWAY ALBUM
Ewa Plantation's neatly kept grounds even extended to the railroad's roundhouse and turntable. Locomotive No. 1, named EWA, pulls away from the turntable. Photograph by Bill Blewett. CLICK FOR LARGE
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Other photographers included Bib Zinsmeister, Grant Oakes Jr., Kent Cochrane and Vitaly Uzoff. In some cases, it's interesting to see how different photographers handled the same subject.
It's a subject that didn't sit still. These trains, locomotives and rail cars were continuously in operation, some for more than 50 years, and the military railroad buffs, with their big awkward cameras, had to grab these images on the fly.
Thanks to large-format negatives and excellent printing by publisher Railroad Press, the days of Hawaiian trains live again in these images. After the war, the trains system all but vanished, and except for the Society's collection in Ewa and these pictures, Hawaii's trains exist only in the hearts and memories of train enthusiasts.
The book is available at the Railway Society gift shop near the end of Renton Road in Ewa. Call 681-5461.
COURTESY HAWAIIAN RAILWAY ALBUM
Photographer Bill Blewett turned the lens on himself at the Iwilei roundhouse, standing on the cowcatcher's footboard of Oahu Railway's locomotive 4-6-0 No. 88 -- and preserving the crease in his uniform and the spit-shine on his shoes. CLICK FOR LARGE
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COURTESY HAWAIIAN RAILWAY ALBUM
An engineer takes a break -- holding his pose so he's not blurred in the long exposure -- in Kahuku Plantation's engine house in this picture by Kent Cochrane, a Coast Guardsman stationed in Honolulu. CLICK FOR LARGE
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COURTESY HAWAIIAN RAILWAY ALBUM
Sometimes, steam power gave way to horsepower -- a mule pulls a three-ton cane car in Waianae, in a picture by Vitaly Uzoff. CLICK FOR LARGE
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