A sprinkling of rain gave way to a burst of sunshine over the Waianae Mountain Range as about 40 family members and friends took Richard W. "Dick" Marshall for a final train ride from Ewa to Kahe Point and back Saturday morning.

Marshall’s welding skills were considered indispensable in the Hawaiian Rail Society’s efforts to preserve Hawaii’s rich railroad history. He died Feb. 8 at 82.

The society hosted a ride for Marshall’s family and friends to honor him.

Powering the rail cars was the rebuilt diesel-electric engine christened the Richard W. Marshall in 1997.

Society president Bob Yatchmenoff was a young kid preparing to attend welding and machine shop classes at Honolulu Community College in 1975 when he saw an article about the fledgling railway society, which had been founded about five years before.

"Almost all the pictures were of Dick Marshall welding on something," Yatchmenoff said. "I said to myself, ‘That might be a good way for me to learn some of the tricks of the trade outside of just going to the school.’"

Yatchmenoff was soon spending his weekends as Marshall’s apprentice in the Lualualei rail yard that was the society’s early home.

"I went on to be a welder and I work at Pearl Harbor," Yatchmenoff said. "All the skills he had with fabrication and steel — I’ve never seen anyone do it and I’ve never seen anybody at the shipyard where I work do it."

Yatchmenoff said Marshall could take complex welding and metal fabrication problems and make them look easy. "There was nothing that he could not figure out how to do," he said. "And it would seem so easy."

Grandson Jeremy Marshall said his grandfather, as an employee of contractors Walker Moody and Hawaiian Dredging, "welded on just about every major transport viaduct on the island."

Nick Carter, who along with John Knaus hatched the idea of restoring a Hawaii railway in 1970, said while Marshall’s welding skills were critical, his main attribute was "he was just such a nice guy" always willing to help others in their efforts. There was never a know-it-all attitude on Marshall’s part. "Everybody worked at their skill level, you contribute what you can."

Born and raised in Portland, Maine, one of Marshall’s first jobs was a telegrapher on the Main Central Railroad on the East Coast.

Later, he was a conductor for the Santa Fe Railroad and a maintenance man for the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Later, he became a welder and a millwright, primarily in North County near San Diego. In 1968, he and second wife Jane Marshall jumped at a chance for him to work as a welder in Hawaii.

Jane Marshall, herself a lifelong train buff, went with her husband to Lualualei when they read in the newspaper that a group was starting to restore a Waialua Agricultural Co. train that had been trucked to a yard in Lualualei.

"We spent the (weekends of the) next five years at Lualualei restoring WaCo 6," Jane Marshall said.

"Dick welded that whole engine himself," Carter said. "Dick was just an artist when it came to welding. He did it all week long to earn a living, and then he’d come here Saturdays and Sundays, welding this stuff together for the train."

The engine was restored in time for it to run along the western portion of the OR&L Railroad during the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial.

Shortly thereafter, Campbell Estate allowed the society onto a former junkyard at the edge of Ewa Villages, where the group began offering rides to the public that continue to this day.

The Marshall family is asking that gifts be made in Marshall’s name to the Hawaiian Railway Society. A scattering of Marshall’s ashes will be private.

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For more information, go to www.hawaiianrailway.com.