Southern railway

Three weeks ago David Jessop in his Sunday column wrote about the resuscitation of railways in some parts of the Caribbean. Among the examples he gave were Jamaica and St Kitts, although the last mentioned was on a very small scale. He said that following the extinction of that island’s cane sugar industry in 2005, its narrow-gauge cane railway was acquired by the St Kitts Scenic Railway. It is now employed in the tourist industry, transporting visitors on track that passes though cane fields, rainforest and alongside the ocean.

Jamaica’s plans are a little more ambitious, involving the rehabilitation of the country’s rail network, through a US$250M investment in its freight and passenger service. Jessop said that this would take place in three stages, the first of which was indeed likely to proceed because of the possibility of connecting it to tourism. He reported Chief Executive Officer of Sandals Resorts as telling the

that it could be used by visitors from cruise ships, hotels and tour companies, and could bring economic benefits to rural areas which tourists do not visit at the moment. The plan is to accomplish the rehabilitation in partnership with US railroad contractor Herzog International.

This is all very modest in comparison with what is planned in the Hispanophone Caribbean, more especially in Cuba. That island, however, has a fairly extensive rail network which is still functioning, albeit in a somewhat degraded state. It is the Russians who are slated in this instance to be the contractors for the upgrade.

Guyana, of course, was short-sighted enough to close down her main railway along the East Coast corridor nearly half a century ago, the stretch between Burma and Rosignol being terminated in 1970, with the remainder of the line to Georgetown following suit in 1972. The rails and sleepers were then torn up and sold, along with the other hardware necessary for operating a railway.

The fact that this was South America’s first railway, having opened in 1848 to cater for passengers and freight between Georgetown and Plaisance in the first instance, did not spare it. All that can be said is that popular folklore has it that this was the one governmental error Forbes Burnham publicly admitted to making – and his regret had nothing to do with sentiment or history. He had more practical considerations in mind, more particularly