HONOLULU -- The city has decided to auction off two expensive trolleys that kept breaking down at Hanauma Bay, KITV 4 News has learned.

The trams never worked properly since the city purchased them two and a half years ago.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann's administration said the trams are another expensive mistake it has to clean up from decisions made under former Mayor Jeremy Harris.

Two trams at Hanauma Bay had problems from the start. They were already sidelined in mid-August 2002. It was the same day the city unveiled its multimillion-dollar improvements to Hanauma Bay.

Call them the little engines that couldn't. City taxpayers spent $252,000 on them. The trams kept breaking down and have been out of service for two years.

"The equipment that was purchased was really inadequate for the grade," City Enterprise Services Director Sidney Quintal said.

The city's specifications for the custom-built trams failed to call for a strong enough engine to go up and down this steep hill, Quintal said.

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"The grade in the specification was not correct to the grade that was out in reality. Consequently, the supplier said 'It's not our problem,'" Quintal said.

Nearly a year ago, the Harris administration sent the trams to a repair yard at Campbell Industrial Park.

Mechanics have estimated it will cost about $12,500 to fix the trams, but the problem is they can't guarantee the trams won't continue to have difficulty going up and down the hill at Hanauma Bay.

"I don't feel that repairing them to have them break again or they're not able to be used anywhere else, would not be proper management of city dollars," Quintal said.

Quintal said he plans to auction off the trams, which have traveled only a little more than 3,000 miles between them.

The current tram concessionaire at Hanauma has been providing its own trams even though that's not called for in the city contract. In exchange, the city gave the concessionaire a $25,000 break on its $37,000 annual concession fee and extended its contract an extra nine months.