Ewa Station - Hawaiian Railway Museum - Train Rides

The Sugarcane Town of Waianae in the early 1930's. The Oahu Railway ran right through the middle of the town. The town itself has moved further back away from the shoreline, has become a much larger suburban community, but the railway line still exists- INTACT- because the OR&L (Oahu Railway & Land) line has become a National Historic Landmark and cannot be torn up or significantly altered.

Today, in fact, the OR&L Right-of-Way is being restored by a non-profit Hawaiian Railway Society which also maintains a railway museum with a significant collection of remaining OR&L equipment and which offers weekend train rides.

In a perhaps as unintended "test" of the Historic Landmark Law, a large Japanese development company decided to go ahead and tear up a good deal of the OR&L track in the resort area known today as Ko Olina, and found that the courts forced them to go back and spend a substantial amount of money to replace the entire track section.

The Ko Olina resort has since incorporated the railway line into their condominium and golf course layouts and the Railway Society has gone back to running their train down the track and on out to Nanakuli where even new bridge sections have been rebuilt.