Kahului #12 has been for sale for at *LEAST* three years. It's not selling, so something is wrong. It is rarely used at Silverwood from what I understand...there are some people on the web that have visited/worked for the line over there who have mentioned this. I don't know when it was returned to steam, I think that I saw the Silverwood folks restored it all themselves in-house which would put it at around 1988. I have never seen photos of it running there, so I can only assume it rarely has. But hey if CHS wants to run locomotives with ancient lap-seam (any with Iron too?) boilers whats this botched one? There's some scary boilers out there that I wouldn't get within a mile of! I haven't seen this personally so I don't know. I'm surprised nobody in Hawaii has been interested in the #12 despite its boiler.
In other news here...the Kahului #1 "Claus Spreckles" (or is it Klaus?) is at the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum in Maui. It was restored to operation in recent years but I believe its just a display. No track or anything. It is a beautiful locomotive and the restoration was first-class by the looks of it. Over at Grove Farms in Kauai, there's still some 30" gauge locomotives. Three are operable I believe, the fourth is not. Included is an 1880s-era German import named "Paulo", supposedly the first plantation engine in Hawaii. They have a small amount of track on the grounds. No public operation.
Awhile ago Phil Reader had mentioned the Kauai Kilohana project on Kauai. I looked up some news articles and saw that they plan to run 3' gauge track using two "formerly Hawaiian" plantation engines from the Phillipines and one Louisiana plantation engine. Brook Rother was to be involved here so I assumed the Louisiana engine was perhaps the ex-Godchaux Porter which he owns which once ran at Old Las Vegas park in Henderson, Nevada (Dan Markoff rescued the damaged Eureka from here in the 80s). Amazing to think that a beautiful 1875 Baldwin like this was running in an amusement park in the 70s. The other two I believe may be Hawaiian-Phillipine locomotives. I presume Brook Rother would restore the locomotives at his shop in Northern California. He restored Hawaii Ry. #5 which runs over here at my end in the Northeast/Southern New England. It appears to be a first-class job.
Anyhow before I go on forever...has anybody heard more on this narrow gauge venture in Hawaii? They have some history of narrow gauge there, and many ex-Hawaiian plantation lokies have "lived" in California at one time or another (or still do).
Keep Steaming,
Ed Kelley