Hawaii Island’s all-too-brief railway era spanned just the first few decades of the 20th century, but they were some of the most formative years in the island’s modern history.
Built primarily to meet the transportation needs of East Hawaii’s sugar plantations, what began as the Hilo Railroad and ended as the Hawaii Consolidated Railway was the most expensive railroad in the world for its time — and it took the devastating tsunami of 1946 to bring it to its knees.
Uncle Roy C. Wilson, a Hawaii Island cultural treasure and former railway man, will recount his still-clear memories of these times and events during a presentation from 7-8:30 p.m. Monday, April 11, at the Lyman Museum.
Born Aug. 21, 1920, in Ipu‘u, Pahala, in the Ka‘u district, Wilson originally was named after his father, Shotaro Suzuki, a Japanese immigrant laborer. His mother was Violet Grace Kahuloa Wilson, of Hawaiian-Caucasian descent.
At the age of 15, the junior Suzuki went to work on the plantation in Pahala until he was 17 and attained the position of “trackman.” He later worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps at Volcanoes National Park and Haleakala National Park on Maui.
He then worked briefly for Maui Pineapple before returning home, where a friend informed him the railroad was hiring. He started there in 1938 as a gandy dancer, a slang term used for early railroad workers who laid and maintained railroad tracks in the years before the work was done by machines. He quickly advanced to become a passenger train brakeman on the Hawaii Consolidated Railroad.
He spent the next eight years working on the railroad until April 1, 1946, when the tsunami devastated Hilo and destroyed the coastal railroad facilities in Hilo.
Wilson’s presentation, part of Lyman Museum’s Saigo Public Program Series, is free to museum members, $3 for nonmembers. Space is limited.
For additional information, call 935-5021 or visit www.lymanmuseum.org.
