My only personal involvement
with sugar cane hauling narrow gauged railroads occurred in 1968 when
the Navy ship I was assigned to stopped in San Juan, Puerto Rico for a
day or two. Most of the crew took advantage of the opportunity to visit
the casinos; I decided to arrange a ride out to where I had been told
the trains were and sure enough, they were there although it was
evening and nothing was moving. From a distance, the little steam
locomotives reminded me of the Maine two-footers but in poorer
condition, and the cars they were pulling around looked like refugees
from a scrap line, mostly open sides with ends and a roof. I shot some
slides until the light faded; they’re around the house somewhere but I
lost track of them years ago. So when Nick Kalis offered to put his
railroad on our home tour schedule, I took advantage of the opportunity
to see them, or at least models of them, once more.
Nick’s Oahu Sugar Company railroad is
set in 1944 on the Hawaiian island of the same name (the island is
better known for another of its enterprises, the Naval Base at Pearl
Harbor). He models in Fn3 scale, the only person I know who does so,
using #1 gauge (45mm) track. Others also use this track, and trains are
available in different sizes to match the scale in which the modeler is
building. The layout, using a track plan designed by Byron Henderson,
fills a third of a large basement room and consists of six viewing
boxes varying is size from four to nine feet long around an oval facing
inward on three sides. with a combination duck under/swing open double
track section at one end for access and continuous running. Each box
represents a single complete scene; some are finished, but others have
details remaining to be done. I had never seen this arrangement before
but it has some unique advantages; you can detail a scene without
having to be concerned with the scene on either side of it and, like
any well done model railroad, it’s the little things (animals, people,
vehicles, etc.) that make the difference.
Starting on the far side, the first box
presented a typical flat sugar plantation landscape with some sugar
cane stalks in the foreground about 20 feet high (yes, they grow that
tall). Nick uses broom straw to represent them and it works quite well.
That’s where the double track end section becomes single track and the
turnout there, like all the turnouts on the layout, is hand thrown. The
next box has a seven foot long wooden trestle running the length of it,
Next was more sugar cane, some palm trees, and a small replica of the
entrance to Kipapa Air Field with an Army Air Force sign, which also
dates it to the mid-1940s. Continuing around the oval, the fourth box
has more vegetation but with low mountains in the background. Around
the corner is the box with the engine facility at Waipahu featuring a
large water tank and an engine house awaiting finishing on the inside;
the last box is also Waipahu with a row of stores in the background and
several vintage 1930’s and 1940’s vehicles parked in front of them (a
1944 version of a shopping mall?); it then becomes double track again
as it heads back to the end section. Nick scratch built most of his
structures. Motive power is a battery run, Airwire
wireless controlled, modified Bachman Porter locomotive with a scratch
built tender; the sugar cane cars are from Shapeways. Nick’s wife,
Kate, did the background art work and provided the snacks. The whole
layout uses “Bendi-Board” for fascia, a Masonite type material that’s
smooth on one side for painting but has quarter inch vertical slots on
the other so it can be easily curved around corners. It originally had
to be imported from England, but there’s a company in Minnesota that
sells it now too.
With so many of us modeling the transition era in either HO or O gauge
(myself included), it was interesting to see what an outstanding job
Nick Kalis was able to do in a completely different scale with a
virtually unknown railroad in an unusual location and time frame as
well. It shows that a model railroad doesn’t have to be large to be
interesting. It also shows what can be accomplished when you call upon
some of the modeling talent available in the Potomac Division for
assistance. Working alone would never have produced such a well done
railroad and no one understands that mistake better than I do. We only
had 25 in attendance, a relatively small crowd for what turned out to
be a beautiful day. The next time Nick’s railroad comes up for a tour,
I would suggest that we try a little harder to get there.
