The Great Locomotive Switch

Moving Olomana

On January 23, after Pioneer shipped out to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the working day for John Sweat and his Morris Kreitz rigging crew was not yet over. Now the crew tackled the task of taking the nine-ton locomotive Olomana down from its high display stand in the north end of the Railroad Hall.

The Process Step by Step

Side-by-side forklifts hold Olomana in place as crew cuts the legs of its stand.

The engine is lowered onto rollers.

SI rigging foreman "Junior" Marshall slowly moves Olomana on its rollers.

NMAH "Skull Crew" and SI Rigging Shop crew move the locomotive into position at the Railroad Hall door.

Olomana is towed out of the museum hall.

The locomotive is again raised by forklifts to be loaded onto the trailer.

The little engine is able to slip under the trees and up the path to the street.

Olomana proceeds down Constitution Avenue on its way to the Arts and Industries building.

Olomana is guided into A&I.

Franklin Odo, Counselor to the Provost for Asian/Pacific American Studies, poses in front of Olomana.

First, Olomana was strapped to the horizontal members of the steel stand. Then, based on a Smithsonian-approved plan, the MK crew moved two forklifts into position closely side-by-side, placing their "forks" tightly under the horizontal part of the stand.

Two of MK's ironworkers then cut off the stand's four legs with an oxy-acetylene torch, first at the top of each leg, then at the bottom. The legs removed, Olomana temporarily appeared airborne. Recalling that Walt Disney had often been engineer of Olomana in California, the scene brought to mind the Disney animated film Dumbo and the circus engine "Casey Jr." Now "Casey Jr." seemed to be flying instead of its little elephant friend.

Lowered carefully, Olomana came slowly to ground, the radically shortened legs of its stand brought to rest on rollers. Riggers then used one of the forklifts to move Olomana to a position convenient for the Smithsonian's own rigging team to begin preparations for the locomotive's move to the Arts & Industries Building in early February.

Thirteen days later, on February 5, Smithsonian riggers moved Olomana from the National Museum of American History to Arts & Industries, to finish the Smithsonian's "great locomotive switch." Smithsonian rigging chief Junior Marshall and his staff, assisted by NMAH's own redoubtable moving specialists, the "Skull Crew," completed the job in one day. Beforehand, NMAH staff removed Olomana's headlight and some vulnerable brass flag stanchions at the engine's front.

Marshall brought the Smithsonian's own heavy flatbed and a big forklift. The Skull Crew contributed another large forklift. Rather than cross the lawn at NMAH's east end, Marshall backed the flatbed trailer up the curved, concrete walk from the corner of 12th Street and Constitution Avenue to the great glass doors into Railroad Hall. The many trees closely flanking the walk prevented Pioneer or Jupiter from taking that path, but tiny Olomana on the trailer could clear the trees.

Marshall, in the hall, then maneuvered a forklift past the huge, green locomotive No. 1401 and the newly installed Jupiter to reach Olomana at the spot where it had been placed by the MK crew. Marshall had brought four aircraft dollies from the National Air & Space Museum's Silver Hill restoration facility. These heavy-duty steel dollies each have four casters. Thus the dollies can bear heavy loads in any direction.

Crewmembers tightened chains to hold Olomana fast to its stand, now the engine's cradle for moving. Olomana's spring suspension made it important to stabilize the engine both laterally and fore-and-aft, without damage to old, wrought iron parts. While the forklift raised each end of the stand, the crew placed the aircraft dollies under the stand's short legs.

With Masonite sheets protecting the floor, the forklift towed Olomana toward the doors and then outside to the concrete walk. A crew member drove the other forklift up, and the two of them raised the stand and its historic load about six feet, one forklift on each side.

Marshall backed his flatbed trailer underneath, Olomana came down, and staff used additional chains to secure the load. NMAH's Susan Tolbert and Andrew Goffney secured moving blankets over the cab, to protect it from a couple of small, low-hanging tree branches on the exit route.

The flatbed rig proceeded out the way it came in and headed east on Constitution Avenue. Then it crossed the National Mall on 7th Street, drove west on Independence, and entered the east parking lot at Arts & Industries. Forklifts there raised Olomana high enough to take the trailer away and set the engine and its stand down on the dollies.

From there it was a short towing job into A&I's strangely empty East Hall. Once in its planned location in the hall, the forklifts elevated Olomana one more time. The crew removed the dollies and put cushioned steel pads under the stand's four legs. Twenty-two years after installation at NMAH, the 116-year-old locomotive was in a new venue, ready for a starring role in a new exhibition.

Currently, Olomana is a centerpiece in an exhibition on part of Hawaii's history, which opened at A&I on May 23, 1999. The exhibit, entitled From Bento to Mixed Plate: Americans of Japanese Ancestry in Multicultural Hawai'i, is produced by the Japanese American National Museum of Los Angeles. The title refers to the bento, the traditional Japanese meal often served in a lacquered, sectioned box. When Olomana came to the islands by clipper ship in 1883, Hawaii was still a kingdom. Before and after Hawaii became a U.S. Territory, people there of Japanese origin or descent labored at many jobs, including jobs in the sugar industry. Olomana will help tell that story through November 30, 1999.