by Andrew Walden

Honolulu Rail contractor, Hitachi, is suing HART alleging “gross mismanagement” which cost the contractor “at least $320 million.”  

The complaint, filed November 17, 2025, in Oahu’s First Circuit Court, provides insight into HART’s ‘six years and counting’ of delays.  Hitachi alleges most were caused by HART’s inability to coordinate between the numerous rail contractors.

Here are some key passages:

 … Defendants’ gross mismanagement of the Skyline rail project caused countless delays and other errors that significantly increased HRH’s and its subcontractors’ costs. The increased costs were incurred for both design-build work and operations and maintenance services. 

 Three errors are emblematic of HART Defendants’ mismanagement. 

-- First, HART Defendants elected to spread the work between a number of contractors but failed to manage their work such that HRH could access the sections for work according to the deadlines resulting in millions of dollars in delays. 

-- Second, the HART Defendants authorized another of HART Defendants’ contractors to install track that was incompatible with passenger vehicles that HART Defendants had already approved. To cover their error, Defendants required HRH to resolve the issue without compensation. 

-- Third, Defendants directed HRH to commence a costly 18-month operations and maintenance workforce mobilization even though Defendants knew the mobilized workforce would not be needed for a long time – months or even years. This error alone cost more than $92,000,000.

Worse, Defendants have stymied HRH’s effort to resolve the parties’ many disputes. Defendants have delayed and disrupted HRH’s good faith efforts to resolve claims, no doubt to delay further public criticism of its Skyline project mismanagement and to force HRH’s involuntary financing of the project. It worked, as HRH has been funding a large portion of delays to the project caused by other parties. Despite this, HRH has continued to work tirelessly and at great expense to resolve this dispute short of litigation. The time has come for Defendants to pay what they owe. …

Hitachi describes how HART wasted six years and $92M:

5. …By 2019, the Project was 2 already five years behind schedule.  In other words, in the eight years since groundbreaking, HART Defendants caused the Project to lose five years against the schedule on which the Contract was based.  

6. In 2019, HRH and HART Defendants amended their contract through Change Order 52, which increased HRH’s contract price by $160,000,000 because of the significant delays.  Perhaps more importantly, Change Order 52 extended HRH’s completion dates for each of the Project’s three segments by more than five years and added new dates that HART Defendants were required to turn over access to Project facilities for HRH to perform its work.  

7. Almost immediately after signing Change Order 52, HART Defendants reneged on their new and renewed promises.  

8. HART Defendants failed to manage the Project and to provide HRH timely site access resulting in significant delays.  As of now, the Project is delayed six years (and counting). …

…

12. … In March 2019, the HART Defendants directed HRH to commence its 18-month effort to mobilize O&M workforce and vendors in anticipation of HRH initiating its O&M duties for Segment 1 in mid-to-late 2020.  At the time of HART Defendants’ directive, they knew, or should have known, that Segment 1 was not going to be complete for several years.

13. HRH spent 18 months – and over $92 million – hiring and training personnel and contracting with vendors for the O&M of Segment 1.  This ill-conceived direction wasted 18 months and $92 million to mobilize and train individuals and vendors to be ready to begin O&M in 2020….

Remember the frogs?  They were worth $10M.  This is the backstory:

66. …As part of their work, KKJV and Kiewit installed crossovers, which are sections of the track that permit a passenger vehicle to cross from one track to another. Crossovers are included in the definition of “special trackwork”. These crossovers include “crossover frogs,” which are components of the trackwork that allow trains to switch between tracks.

 67. HRH designed a wheel profile specifying, among other things, that the width of the wheel would be 4.75 inches—consistent with one of the two options provided to HRH in the Contract. HRH’s 2012 wheel design that specified a 4.75-inch wheel width remained the same through March 2, 2017, when HART formally accepted HRH’s wheel assembly submittal.

68. In January 2021, approximately six years after the track was installed (2015) and approximately nine years after HRH declared a wheel design with 4.75” width, HART discovered an incompatibility between the crossovers supplied by its civil contractor(s) and HRH’s wheel width. HART engaged Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (“TTCI”) to investigate this incompatibility.

69. TTCI is part of the United States Department of Transportation Federal Railroad Administration and provides rail infrastructure consulting. TCCI concluded that the dimensions of the crossovers were such that the only range of wheel widths compatible with these crossovers was between 5.28 to 5.44 inches. Thus, according to HART’s technical expert, the HART/Parsons Brinckerhoff 2009 Contract documents and wheel design specifications HART mandated HRH design to (either 4.75 inches or 5.1564 inches) were fundamentally incompatible with the crossovers HART allowed to be installed in the field.

70. HRH’s wheel design was always compliant with the Contract, but HART required HRH to provide the ultimate fix for the crossover/wheel incompatibility by requiring HRH to change the wheel widths to overcome the inappropriate double crossover frogs installed by others and allowed through HART’s errors in supervision.

71. While that process was unfolding, HART directed a temporary fix, which was to provide welds at the crossovers to permit the approved wheels to function without risk of derailment. Though the welds were good enough to safely operate the train, they were not a long-term fix, and eventually required accompanying grinding to reduce the additional wheel-wear caused by the welds.

72. Although HRH’s wheel design was always compliant with the Contract, HART eventually required HRH to change the wheel widths to overcome the crossover/wheel incompatibility due to work installed by others and supervised by HART.

73. The wheel/crossover incompatibility had a devastating impact on the Segment 1 schedule. HRH was prevented from conducting final testing of Segment 1 because speed restrictions mandated that the passenger vehicles could not be operated faster than five miles per hour over the crossovers until a suitable fix was in place. This, in turn, pushed the Segment 1 opening back 13 months.

74. Further, while HART had other options available to it to address the crossover incompatibility (such as replacing the crossovers), HART instead chose to place the full burden for remedying the problem on HRH. HART eventually required HRH to replace the existing passenger vehicle wheels with a 5.34-inch wheel to accommodate the crossovers. This new wheel width was not the original HART design, which TCCI said would not work, but was an entirely new width. Because the passenger vehicles had already been delivered, replacement of the wheels had to be done on site in Hawaii rather than in the factory, which added significantly to the complexity and cost of doing so. HART has refused to compensate HRH for these costs, which exceed $10,000,000….

If Hitachi wins, HART will be another $320M, plus interest, over budget.

read … COMPLAINT 

CN: Honolulu rapid transit | Courthouse News Service