A Caribbean Break
David Staines reports on the fascinating tourist trains that take cruise passengers around St Kitts using part of the old sugar cane network.
The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on the UK’s railways, but its effects on the wider travel industry are all the more devastating. International leisure travel is strictly off limits. Armchair travel is the only item on the agenda, so sit back and take a trip to the Caribbean. Not to the idyllic beach scenes familiar from so many stock photos, but to the only original railway in these legendary far away islands still to carry passengers regularly. Welcome to tiny St Kitts & Nevis (smaller than the Isle of Wight and sitting in the chain of islands that make up the eastern Caribbean) for a particularly unconventional trip on the remains of its sugar cane plantation system.
Sugar industry
In the 18th century sugar was one of the most valuable commodities in the world and tiny St Kitts, with 200 such plantations, was claimed to be one of the wealthiest islands in British possession. The railway’s survival is down to two very different events nearly a century apart. First was a decision back in 1912 to create one centralised sugar mill and factory for the entire island at its capital, Basseterre. In dispensing with a myriad of small scattered privately owned mills a transport system was needed to convey the harvested crop to the factory and this was provided by building the 2’6” gauge railway. This was completed in 1926, with a ‘main line’ running a 30-mile circuit around the entire circumference of the island. Ten transfer sidings were provided for loading cut cane. This economy of scale saw the industry on St Kitts far outlive that of any of its neighbours.
The 1950s saw steam eliminated, with new diesels supplied to the island by Hunslet. At its busiest the railway worked incredibly hard, delivering 950 loaded wagons to the mill each day utilising a fleet of only 650 wagons. In the face of spiralling losses, antiquated infrastructure and competition from imported sugar beet, the entire industry (by now nationalised) closed at the end of the 2005 harvest. On July 31 that year a flower-garlanded Hunslet No 15 brought the last load of cane into the factory at Basseterre. The island’s main industry in future would be tourism.
Changing fortunes
The second event, nearly 100 years after 1912, was the arrival – love them or loathe them – of the mega cruise ship. The policy of rationalisation in 1912 had meant that the railway had (unlike those on most of the other Caribbean islands) managed to limp into the age of the big cruise ship. Back in 2002 a joint private/government initiative had realised the potential of the scenic aspects of the railway and introduced tourist trains, which first ran in January 2003. Cruise ship operators, with thousands of passengers being deposited on the quayside at Basseterre eager for a day excursion, were a ready market and the scenic tourist railway was born.
Initially the passenger trains ran the whole way around the island, but with trains taking four hours to do the circuit it was deemed too long by the cruise companies. In 2005 it was cut back to 18 miles, around the east and northern part of the island, with passengers being bussed around the remainder of the circuit. New rolling stock was key. Converting the old cane wagons was out of the question as it had already been tried and had failed. The ride was totally unacceptable, the facilities that passengers demanded could not be provided and extra height was needed to see the sights above the top of the cane fields.
At first glance the new rolling stock looks like a freaky cross between a wild west stagecoach and a fairground ride but, aesthetics aside, the cars are quite ingenious. Designed by Colorado Railcar (builders of the dome cars for the ‘Rocky Mountaineer’) and built by Hamilton Manufacturing in Washington, USA, they have a top-level open-air observation deck for 360 degree views, while downstairs the parlour features six foot (1.8m) high observation windows, air conditioning, cushioned rattan chairs with inlaid tables, toilets, a bar and local paintings on the wall. Each car accommodates 28 passengers. They may look unconventional in the extreme, but without these double-deckers the railway would never have survived. An attempt on nearby Antigua to resurrect tourist trains using old cane wagons, even steam hauled, was short lived and failed at this hurdle.
History maintained
Trains formed of up to five of these ‘railcars’, as they are known, together with a generator van, were well beyond the capability of the 160hp Hunslets left over from sugar cane days. Alternative motive power was imported in the shape of three Lyd2 0-6-0 Romanian diesel hydraulics built by Faur in Bucharest in 1977-1980 and last used in Poland. Re-equipped with Henschel 450hp engines, they were re-gauged from 750mm to 762mm (2’6”). Nos 1 and 2 are in use and No 3 is a source of spare parts.
The railway has not turned its back on its heritage motive power, though. An eclectic selection of mostly of 1950s vintage diesels survives, although most are in a poor or irretrievable condition. When the railways in Antigua and Jamaica closed, some of their locos found their way to St Kitts. Hunslets 14 and 15 were restored with an initial aim of having them plinthed as museum pieces, but happily they have remained on the railway and are still used on works trains. All but one of the seven Kerr Stuart steam locos previously in use were broken up in 1972. Kerr Stuart No 5 somehow survived only to be wrecked when someone decided it would be a good idea to move it sideways with a bulldozer. With no local steel industry and the high cost of shipping scrap off the island there is little drive to break up redundant locos, although unused sections of rail have the strange habit of disappearing and reappearing as private telegraph poles. When the cane traffic finished many of the diesels were just abandoned on sidings, only re-appearing from beneath encroaching undergrowth when the land they were on was required for other purposes. Many then gravitating to Needsmust Depot near Basseterre as their significance became appreciated over the years.
Tourist trains
Needsmust, once the first siding about half a mile away from the former sugar factory, is now the centre of activities. There is a modern three-road maintenance and repair depot and a platform half way round a new balloon return loop. Trains run 18 miles to the site of La Vallee siding along the island’s Atlantic coast where another balloon loop has been installed. It’s a spectacular journey as the line not only hugs the coast it also veers inland and out again, following the contours of the natural ‘ghuts’ or valleys that
are crossed on colonial-style steel bridges. For passengers it’s a single journey, with the remaining 12 miles to complete the circuit done by sightseeing bus, or vice versa. With passengers taking the single journey either clockwise or anticlockwise around the island, two return trips by the train will convey four paying train loads. Two return journeys are usually made in the height of the cruise season with the operation pitched towards the earlier part of the day – the cruise lines calling the shots here as they often prefer an earlier start and finish to their days out to counter any chance of a late return delaying their ship’s departure. An inspection trolley may precede the first train of the day, while a single crossing keeper pacing the train by road will work all the intermediate level crossing gates en route. It’s a fabulous journey. The railway promises the sights of ocean, surf, cliffs, lush vegetation, small villages and farms. Dark green rain forests are skirted by rippling fields of sugar cane, with the volcanic cone of Mt Liamuiga rising above. Scenically it delivers everything – but as a railway experience in a far-off island, it delivers so much more.
Travel tips
It is possible to book independently but, other than marking local events, the railway usually only runs when a ship is in port. Independent passengers are usually conveyed on the first departure from Needsmust at around 0900. The top decks of the ‘railcars’ do give a 360 degree view but the seats are longitudinal, meaning the view when you look straight ahead is between the heads of the passengers opposite. Not so good for photography. However, at the back of each car is a single row of conventional forward-facing seats, one of which is also neatly set behind the stairwell, giving you a further unobstructed view as there is nobody seated immediately in front of you. It’s firstcome first served – the carriage stopping places are marked on the platform and the entrance to each car is at the back. Once on the train you’ll have a commentary (but not all of the time) plus a local choir hopping from carriage to carriage to entertain you, as well as the ‘Henschel music’ up front, which itself is quite spectacular. Despite the facilities of the ‘railcars’ the ride is lively, to put it politely. Perhaps exhilarating or brutal might be better. Also promoted is the service of complimentary rum punch, frozen daiquiris, fruit juices and bottled water throughout the trip. And they do mean throughout the trip – you can line up the rum punches and daiquiris for as long as you like, they just keep coming for as long as you want them. Beware of the potential combination of unlimited rum punch and the state of the permanent way!
"You can line up the rum punches and daiquiris for as long as you like,
they just keep coming for as long as you want them."