The Last Railway in the West Indies
Me waiting for the train in St Kitts
There aren’t too many train rides available to enjoy in the Caribbean, but here’s one of them…
The St Kitts Scenic Railway - a wonderful round-the-island experience not to be missed if you are ever in that neck of the woods.
The Last Train in the West Indies
The railway is an 18 mile long narrow gauge line that circumnavigates the island following the coastline.
Every mile of the way you see evidence of the history of the place - and the reason the line was laid in the first place… It was all about sugar from the plantations - and basically the little trains used to take the raw materials down from the farms around the central mountain and deliver it to the big old sugar mill at Basseterre.
The sugar mill was built in 1912, to reduce processing costs. Before that, each plantation had its own sugar mill - and you can see the remains of many of them along the route.
The first section of the railway line, from the Factory Pier to the St. Kitts Basseterre Sugar Factory, with a West Line branch running 4 miles to Palmetto Point and a North Line branch running out to Mills's at Bourryeau Estate, was completed on 28 February 1912. And it was a really big deal at the time - a special train carried various dignitaries. After that the railway was operated seasonally from February to June for the annual sugar harvest.
In modern happier days the privately owned St. Kitts Scenic Railway carries tourists rather than sugar cane. The first of the new passenger carrying trains began services in January 2003. The whole ting is run as a partnership between the government and a private enterprise.
And it is known as “The Last Railway in the West Indies” and part of its objective is to preserve a link to the past, when sugar ruled the island's economy.
