BIG ISLAND RAIL

Aloha!

It's 'Big Time' railroading on the...

 Big Island of Hawai'i.

Puna Sugar Company CF-7 No.2473 at South Hilo Yard. 

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BIG ISLAND RAIL HAS MOVED (again)!

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See BIRR in the October 2009 Issue of RMC!

Completed waterfall at Kimipele Gulch Bridge!

Can you tell the waterfall is actually a photo mounted to backdrop!?!?!?

Plus....

BIRR FEATURED IN THE NOVEMBER 2009 ISSUE OF MODEL RAILROADER MAGAZINE!

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TWO NEW CARS ON THE BIRR!

Converted boxcars now in bagasse service for Puna Sugar. 

PHOTO FROM FORMER BIRR LAYOUT!

(Above) Big Island Rail No. 15 approaches the Kimipele Gulch Bridge leading a string of empty sugarcane racks southbound, near the Maulua Tunnel, from Hilo to cane fields near Keaau (Ola'a). 

Big Island Rail serves the Big Island of Hawai'i's agricultural, intermodal shipping and military customers with fast, friendly service. BIRR links the Port of Hilo and South Hilo Bay Terminal with the southeastern and northwestern regions of this beautiful tropical island. The shortline also connects with tran-ocean shipping lines at two international ports and with inter-island carriers for an Hawai'ian Island chain-wide system of rail, sea, highway and air connections

If you are wondering why you didn't see any tracks or trains on the Big Island during your last vacation trip to Hawai'i, it's because Big Island Rail is an HO scale model railroad depecting "just what may have been" if the railroads still were a viable mode of transportation on the Islands.

The Big Island was home to an extensive web of both standard gauge and narrow gauge tracks during the early to mid-1900s.

The HCR still lives on, if only in memory. The state highway department took over much of the railroad's right-of-way. The Hawai'i Belt Highway 19 and 11 were built where steam-powered trains used to chug along. Some remanants of the railroad are still visable.

My model railroad layout captures the "Spirit of Aloha," modeling a small portion of the former railway on the Big Island of Hawai'i. My railroad is based on the premise that the 1946 tsunami didn't wipe out the old railroad and the railroad operation continued to grow and prosper through the 1950s, '60s,'70s and into the present day.

Set in the present day era, gone are steam engines and passenger service. But the modern regional railroad, using EMD and ALCO diesels, keeps the rails shiny by hauling intermodel containers and piggyback trailers to and from various Big Island port terminals. Who knows, with the population and congestion building and building on the Island,especially between Hilo and Puna District, the BIRR might see some modern commuter rail service in the future!

Hawai'ian Island's famous pinneapples take a train ride to the Dole Cannery located in the South Hilo Bay Harbor District. Bulk, raw sugar travels from mills near Puna in covered hopper unit trains to transloading elevators in South Hilo Bay district bound for the C&H Sugar Company Mill in Crocket, California.

And what would an Hawai'ian railroad be without sugar cane? Raw, cut cane arrives at the Hamakua Sugar Company processing mill at the Bayfront Industrial area in scratch-build cane railcars. Processed and packaged sugar leaves the mill in boxcars and covered hoppers. Baggasse, the woody bi-product of the sugar cane milling process is loaded into chip hoppers and heads to a new power plant south of Hilo to be burned as bio-mass fuel to generate "green" energy. Baggasse is also used to make paper, hardboard other products. 

Other freight car loads of construction and building materials, such as lumber and concrete,  agricultural fertilizers and other ag products, like famous Kona coffee, macadamia nuts, and papayas travel over BIRR rails.

There has been recent talk on the Island of starting modern communter train service between Puna and outlying areas and downtown Hilo, as well as from Kona to Hilo. They are even talking about commuter or light rail in Honolulu! With all the traffic and congestion now hitting the Islands, and no money going towards improving the road system, getting to town by train could be the next hot development in Hawaii.

This Website is still being built, as is my layout. More photos and text will be added in between trips out into the trainroom. New photos are now in the 'Photos' section linked on the left.

See "Talk Story" section for the latest BIRR info.

A track plan layout drawings of the former BIRR are included and new layout track plan and "system map" is in the works.

Drop me a line if you want: jeepinjoseph@hotmail.com.

Become a member of the

Laupahoehoe Train Museum.

 I did!

www.thetrainmuseum.com

Laupahoehoe Train Museum

P.O. Box 358

Laupahoehoe, HI 96764

(808) 962-6300

laupahoehoetrainmuseum@yahoo.com

Mahalo for visiting BIG ISLAND RAIL!

KAPU BRAH!!!!
Big Island Railway, Big Island Rail website and all photography are Copyright 2009 Joseph Kreiss Photography.





 

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