As railroad fans, we are in one form or another, closet historians.
“The station used to be right there. You can still see the foundation if you look carefully,” we point out to neophytes to a particular area.
“The railroad used to have a switcher based here to service the local industries. Today, there is nothing but through freight trains and Amtrak.”
It’s natural we want to pass history to others. Many of us feel if we do not do it, nobody will, and the information will soon disappear forever.
I had a similar feeling when visiting Hawaii and touring the Hawaii Railway Society on Oahu. As an operating museum, its roster includes equipment that can be found nowhere else in the state.
So here I am, looking at HRS 45-ton Whitcomb No. 423, all gussied up to pull a short train of flatcars fitted with seats for riders on a short stretch of railroad originally owned by Oahu Railway & Land Co., and later operated by the United States Navy. For some of us it is hard to believe that this unit was once a locomotive that earned its daily keep defending America. But it was. And it got me wanting to learn more.
A little history
The Whitcomb Locomotive Co. was a successful builder of gasoline, battery, and diesel powered industrial locomotives for customers around the world. If you had specific design limitations, Whitcomb would do its best to accommodate you.
A working partnership began between Whitcomb and the much larger Baldwin Locomotive Works, which soon led to the latter investing in the company. Soon, Baldwin had complete control, making it a division just before World War II. During the war, Whitcomb was tapped to supply various branches of the military with its reliable locomotives. Magazine advertisements sprouted up showing Whitcomb center-cab switchers switching cuts of cars in deeply industrial settings.
HRS No. 423
The 423 was part of an order for three 45-ton, 300-hp units ordered in 1944. Two stayed in the continental United States while No. 423 wound up in Oahu working the U.S. Navy facility at Pearl Harbor. It bore the military number 65-00423.
As just another locomotive in a small fleet of Navy units busily shuffling cars of equipment and ammunition, the little unit was constantly in the shadow of ships going to and coming back from war.
One photo I found on the Internet shows the unit in the late 1940s near CVL29, the light aircraft carrier USS Bataan. A warrior from World War II, the Bataan would later see service during the Korean Conflict before being disposed of in the 1960s.
But the 65-00423 continued on. When the Navy began moving away from rails at Pearl Harbor, the unit found its way to the Hawaiian Railway Society. A haven built from the skeleton of the Oahu Railway & Land Co., it had stayed in use receiving loads of ammunition from a Navy depot to the port. Many of the rails from that era are still in place. The Society is well worth a stop when you are in Hawaii.
Armed with its history, looking at the 423 I gained a new appreciation for it and the other former military units there. It gives yet another meaning to the phrase, “Thank you for your service.”
