Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 202, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1915 — VALUABLE LINES IN HAWAII [ARTICLE]

VALUABLE LINES IN HAWAII

Railroad System of Island Pay* Handsome Dividends to Those Who Own the Stock. Twenty years ago the railway system on the Island of Oahu, Hawaii, had 23% miles of track. Now, there are 127 miles, including plantation spurs. At first this railroad almost ruined its promoters. Now it is one of the best-paying investments in the Hawaiian archipelago. The company owns 22 locomotives, 44 passenger cars and 520 freight cars. It has 36,000 feet of wharf and can store 20,000 tons of sugar. Taxes on property from Ewa to Kahuku plantation, writes a Honolulu correspondent of Commerce Reports, which is tapped by this railroad, amounted at the time the road started to $28,853; in 1914 the taxes on the same property totaled $310,000. This is one example how the land along the line has increased in value in the last twenty years. The railroad paid $87,324 in taxes in 1914, which means that every two years the company pays back to the government the amount of the subsidy granted to the railroad, which was $196,980. The gross earnings of the road twenty years ago were $120,000, and now they are $1,300,000; the freight earnings were $43,000 and today they are $813,000; the passenger earnings were $25,000, and now they are $300,000. Twenty years ago 79,000 passengers were carried yearly, while in 1914 about 1,140,000 persons patronized the cars. There were 907,000 passengers carried one mile twenty years ago; in 1914 they numbered 16,435,000. Passenger rates show less than two cents a mile; this is lower than the average rate on the mainland. This railroad, which starts in Honolulu, taps fivp of the largest sugar plantations in the Hawaiian islands, all the big pineapple plantations, a sisal plantation, several stock farms and several rice and banana plantations; skirts the shores of Pearl harbor, where the United States government is building a $2,000,000 naval station and dry dock, and indirectly taps one large American army post and one of the strongest fortifications under the American flag, Fort Kamehameha. which guards the entrance to Pearl harbor. In addition to its commercial importance the road opens up some of the finest scenic features on the island of Oahu.