Hawaiian Railway

Pearl Harbor & Leeward O‘ahu


For half a century from 1890 to 1940, a railroad carried sugarcane and passengers from Honolulu all the way around the coast through to Kahuku. The railway closed and the tracks were torn up after WWII and the automobile boom in Hawaii. Thanks to the historical society, trains run again along a segment of restored track between ʻEwa and beachfront Kahe Point. The 90-minute round-trip chugs along through sometimes-pastoral, sometimes-industrial scenery, and past the Ko Olina resorts.

The yard is a vast junkyard of rusty railway debris and includes the coal engine that pulled the first Oʻahu Railway and Land Company (OR&L) train in 1889. The 3pm trains make a very popular stop at a Ko Olina ice cream parlor. There's appealing and shady picnic tables at the depot.


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