Myrtle, the brown and gray steam locomotive, trots above the greens of the championship golf course, crosses the stout wooden trestle and jogs between Maui`s unruly sugar cane fields just high enough for passengers to see in the distance the panorama of offshore Molokai`s forests and grasslands, pineapple plantations on another island, Lanai, and-when they are in luck-the spouting of humpback whales.
Riders in the nostalgic carriages behind Myrtle lower the windows on the clear, sunny days that are the norm for the Kaanapali coast. Sniffing the mixed perfumes of oil, smoke, tropical flowers and sugar cane, is indeed an aromatic experience to make their senses swirl with olfactory confusion.
Adults know the Lahaina-Kaanapali & Pacific Railroad (L-K&P) as the Sugar Cane Train. Children call it the Hang Loose Train. It is a quirk of fate. L-K& P is in the right place at the right time. Locomotives and carriages built like props in a wild-West movie evoke the fascination of steam-train pioneering.
Years ago there were not enough people on Maui to support a passenger train of any sort, much less a puffing steam train. Now there are, but financiers couldn`t afford to build one today. The present running of the L-K& P leads to a rare symbiotic enrichment of the Kaanapali Beach area and the historic whaling village of Lahaina.
The train`s perks
The rail line offers visitors to Maui:
– a pleasant outing with entertainment,
– convenient transportation to and from Lahaina and
– a nostalgic trip giving children a taste of the golden days of train travel.
All for only $8, round trip, one of the cheapest activities per hour on the Valley Island.
The train features singing conductors-probably the world`s only ones. They accompany themselves on ukuleles and guitars. The train passes stately and beautiful scenery, panoramas of the seashore and nearby islands under canopies of surprisingly broad and thick rainbows that appear to be anchored first by a sugar plantation and then by a rocky promontory. Rainbows are a frequent sight.
L-K&P transfers visitors and workers between busy Lahaina Village and the recreational facilities of the Kaanapali Beach resort hotels, condominiums and the pink Embassy Suites Resort.
Two steam locomotives, the Myrtle and the Anaka, preserve the ambiance of earlier days.
Gray-painted Myrtle was named for the old-time Hawaiian field locomotive; red-and-green Anaka for the Hawaiian transliteration of Angus, the name of the son of A.W. McKelvey, founder of the line.
Built in 1943
Both locomotives traveled to Maui after duty quarrying limestone in Ohio. They were built in 1943, but modified in the 1960s to look like original Hawaiian engines.
For backup, L-K&P turns to Oahu No. 45, the stubby diesel locomotive built in 1959 by the Plymouth Locomotive Works.
Tiger termites are a special problem vengeful here, so the carriages are built as much as possible from fiberglas, aluminum and plastic, but styled and scribed so carefully that they look traditional-patterned after the Big Island`s railroads at the turn of the century. Almost no visitor suspects they are not carefully preserved antiques.
The hard wooden seats have backs that passengers reverse at the ends of the line. Children studying their metal grillwork pictures see the cast-iron spouting whales and the L-K&P logo scrolled into the legs.
Many of the riders are day-trippers from Oahu who tire of the surf at Waikiki and come to see Maui`s volcano, Maui`s mysterious valleys and waterfalls and the railroad. They spend their vacation dollars in the shops of Lahaina and then fly back to Oahu from the nearby West Maui airport.
No reservations needed
For the train, only large groups need reservations. Dispatchers program the four carriages to serve sightseeing buses and still provide 50 seats for walk-ons. Their trick is to space the busloads so that Maui`s narrow roads don`t clog with buses and commuters never face gridlock on their trips between Lahaina and Kaanapali`s popular hotels and condos.
Leaving from Puukolii station near the Embassy Suites Resort, everyone rides free to Kaanapali Station. Even while Myrtle makes its first tentative chugs from Puukolii, male and female conductors begin improvising the entertainment and description of Hawaii`s traditions over the box speakers suspended from the ceiling according to his or her fancy of the day.
At the first stop, Kaanapali station, amidst palm trees heavy with coconuts and papaya trees rich with ripening fruit, passengers from the cluster of major resort hotels join the train. From Kaanapali station everyone has a ticket.
Along the main right-of-way, Myrtle rolls at the heady speed of 12 to 15 m.p.h. parallel to a private earthen highway littered by sheaves blown from the laden sugar cane trucks rushing pell-mell past the train. These leavings remind visitors of the days when the sugar car industry was king-and in those days had to rely on the steam railroad. One imagines the train with hoppers overflowing with cane; chaff flying in its wake across the countryside.
Race with golf carts
Leaving the fields of unruly sugar cane, Myrtle travels through more manicured golf courses, and here, during the season between cane harvests, golf-cart drivers like to race the train. Delighted spectators wait for the train, focusing their mini-cam video equipment on Myrtle and the picturesque carriages.
L-K&P is entertainment and fun, but it also provides public service in times of danger. After a recent wind storm Kaanapali`s only highway was closed by downed power lines. L-K&P workers and Myrtle labored overtime transporting visitors to passable highways so they could make their connecting flights home-and no one was charged a dime.
Myrtle enters the area known as Rolling Cliffs, decorated by purple-flowering bougainvillea vines. Passengers look down on the parade of hotels fronting the beach.
The trip`s most dramatic moment comes as the locomotive chugs across Hahakea trestle, built of heavy wooden beams, 400 feet long, 34 feet high.
Then, Myrtle returns to the cane fields and passengers see the beginning of Kaanapali Beach`s three miles of white sand and the public parking area for the beach.
Myrtle descends at a grade of 2 1/2 percent, or one foot in 400 it covers. The descent is easy, but its return climb pushes the fully loaded steam locomotive to its limit.
Stunning panoramas
Passengers crane their necks, curious to see everything colorful. The West Maui mountains, always shrouded in clouds, tower in the east. The blue waves of the Pacific Ocean spread on the beaches to the west below. The inevitable rainbows arch above. Acrobatic board surfers ride high on the Pacific`s waves and wind-surfers maneuver their billowing, bright sails to catch every inch of the trade winds rustling the palm fronds and waving the sugar cane on shore.
As Myrtle enters Lahaina, passengers see all the indications of a prospering, modern community. The newer buildings are the government complex, Lahaina`s civic center, its fire station, its police headquarters and its post office. Then Myrtle crosses the red earth and passes tennis courts to reach open beach.
The singing conductors are charmers-their pleasing voices add character to traditional Hawaiian and American folk songs. The children love to participate by flashing their thumbs and pinkies in the Hawaiian way every time they hear the words: ”Hang loose.”
Japanese passengers don`t seem to appreciate the clever ”Hang loose”
touches, but come alive when they hear the conductors making announcements in their language.
While passengers approach the end of Myrtle`s ride, they savor the swaying coconut trees, and admire the ripening papaya fruit hanging from the slender trunks to their left. The former pineapple cannery on their right has been transformed into a corrugated-iron major shopping center with a well-known supermarket.
Many cultures seen
Myrtle passes the spire of the Mormon church and then the Philippine Iglesa di Cristo. They serve but two of Maui`s multinational and
multidenominational cultures. No ethnic group comprises a majority on Maui.
Passengers often see a cruise ship in harbor ahead. Myrtle`s stop at Lahaina station used to be on the outskirts of the city, but now it is centrally located as the city spreads inexorably around it.
The steam locomotive crosses the flood channel to the station. On the left stands the buff-colored Pioneer sugar mill served by the buff-colored sugar-cane trucks that stole that traffic from the train.
At the station Myrtle rolls onto a turntable fronting on the main highway. Cars stop while parents take their children out to watch the turning of the steam locomotive for its return trip.
Passengers boarding here run from the snack and gift shops to the ticket booths to buy their tickets and photograph the train before boarding. On a clear day they are looking forward to Myrtle`s 12-mile run back to Kaanapali, with the steam locomotive whistling and the sun sinking low over Molokai.
———-
The Sugar Cane Train makes five round trips daily, from 8:55 a.m. to 4:40 p.m. Cost: $8, adult round trip; $5, one-way. Children 3 to 12 pay half. Babes in arms ride free. Telephone 808-667-6851 or write to P.O. Box 816, Lahaina, Hawaii. Free shuttle buses, red London double-deckers, connect Lahaina station with downtown Lahaina.
