Honokaa Sugar Company 2-4-2 "Columbian" Locomotives in the USA

Class Kawela (Locobase 14216)

Data from Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Vol 49, p.194. See also "Honokaa Sugar Company History," Hawaiian Sugar Plantation Association Plantation Archives at [] (last accessed 10 June 2012). Works number was 33419 in May 1909.

The Honokaa plantation is located on the northeast coast of the Big Island, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Hilo. HSPA's Plantation Archive history describes a setting with typical problems for Hawaiian sugar growers: "The lands, which extend from the sea a distance of about three miles toward the mountains, range in elevation from 280 feet at Kukuihaele landing to 1,955 feet inland on the slope of Mauna Kea. The region is cut by a number of gulches and the slopes are generally steep. This presents considerable problems in growing and harvesting cane due to temperature and rainfall variations at different elevations and the problem of transporting it over rough terrain."

The six-mile railway that served the plantation interacted with an "elaborate system of flumes" and two "ditches" dug between 1904 and 1910 that brought water from the Kohala Mountains and from Wapio Valley. The combination is described as an "offered an effective means of moving cane to the mill."

This little tank had a firebox fitted with plain bars and a drop plate of cast iron, rendering it suitable for burning either wood or coal ("chiefly coal", said the spec) and a typical spark-arresting Radley & Hunter diamond stack. It served the KSC for over 30 years.