Hawaiian Consolidated 4-6-0 "Ten-Wheeler" Locomotives in the USA

Class 121 (Locobase 14754)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works datacard as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 63, p. 237+. Works number was 54897 in July 1921.

The early part of this Big Island railway's history as the Hilo Railway is laid out in Locobase 12374. After the Hilo's foreclosure in 1916, due largely to the expense of building the Hamakua extension, the company reorganized as the HCR. Over the next couple of decades, the railway climbed toward prosperity.

An early bearer of HCR livery was this superheated, oil-burning Ten-wheeler that came in 1921. Its piston valves measured 9 1/2" (241 mm) in diameter and were actuated by outside radial valve gear. It was the last new locomotive bought for the railway and was assembled at the Hilo Iron Works.

Just as the HCR's long struggle to retire the debt amassed in building the Hamakua extension had nearly erased the deficit, however, a tsunami caused by an Alaskan earthquake hit the east coast on 1 April 1946. According to the Laupahoehoe Museum ([], last accessed 21 January 2012), "A tragic loss of life occurred in several low-lying areas of the island chain, the east side of Hawaii island were hit the worst. The railroad line between Hilo and Pa'auilo suffered massive damage; bridges collapsed, trestles tumbled, and one engine was literally swept off the tracks."

The 121 was caught by the tsunami as it pulled a northbound freight along the Hilo Bay waterfront. It was scrapped the next year.

Although some of the outlying plantations wanted to rebuild those part of the HCR that were wrecked, the cost daunted many others and it was abandoned soon after. See the Pacific Tsunami Museum's account in their online newsletter: []