Virtual Railfan Tour - St. Kitts 1975

 

A train of empty cars at Boyds

I made visits to St, Kitts in the Caribbean near Antigua in 1975, 1979, 1981, 1983 and 1991. There was a railway moving sugar cane to the factory at Basseterre. This was 2' 6" gauge built in a "Q" shape around the island, about 30 miles. The factory is at the base of the "Q" with the short "tail" serving the harbor.

On my first visit we arrived at the hotel after dark,  The taxi had bumped over a rough piece of road just before the hotel entrance.  I woke up the next morning to a low growling sound. It turned out we had a view across the cane fields to the railway track. The rough road was a railway crossing.

With one man driving the train the rest of the crew were very relaxed

Cane was brought to the nearest siding and loaded into tbe trucks

There were many Hunslet locomotives. Each road locomotive was paired with a water filled tender to provide extra braking

The Davenports were a little larger and were described by the crew as "like a large, fat old lady on spindly legs"

Steam engine water tanks were quite frequent 


Goats were plwntiful

I managed a short cab ride

"Churchill" was a Davenport originally numbered 13. It gave much trouble and was continually derailing. Eventually the company removed the number and gave it a name.  It then became a model locomotive and gave no more trouble. They had similar problems with locomotive No. 4.  This was solved by renumbering it "14". This gave the company two No. 14 locomotives. Maybe the derailment devil became confused over which locomotive to haunt.

There was a marshalling yard at Basseterre switched by a tiny locomotive

Signalling at the yard

The dispatcher's panel consisted of a metal circle showing the sidings. There was a numbered magnet for each locomotive which was moved around the board as the trains progressed.  Communication was by radio.

The operating fleet was kept in a shed

There was a lot of interesting junk  at Basseterre. This is an armor plated Mororail locomotive reputed to have done service in World War I trenches

A derelict steam locomotive

A derelict Plymouth
I was warned not to get too close to the abandoned locomotives as they frequently harbored nests of hornets that could give one a severe sting.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Railfan Tour of Switzerland - Wednesday - Zurich Hauptbahnhof Part One

Image
Zurich Hauptbahnhof  Paul has prepared some extensive notes and photos of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof.  This will be in several parts.  The busiest station in Switzerland is Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich HB) which is used primarily by the SBB. It has 26 tracks serving almost 3000 trains daily and it is one of the busiest stations in the world. It was built in the 1870s and is a main shopping destination as well as a transport hub. There are three levels for platforms and the "Shopville" shopping plaza.  The river Sihl river passes right through the station with platforms passing above and below the river. This shows the general layout of the station with the surrounding tram tracks shown in purple Tracks 3 to 18 are terminal tracks located at ground level, served by two side platforms and seven island platforms. These are used by long-distance trains from throughout Switzerland, and by international trains. Tracks 21 and 22 are underground terminal tracks, served by a single island
Read more

Thursday 21 September - Wrap Up

Image
  Flytoget at Oslo Central I caught a Flytoget express train to Oslo airport. These run every ten minutes throughout the day. Every other one stops at Lillestrom which was convenient as Paul joined me there, (he was staying at a nearby Lillestrom hotel). This is a high speed train which runs from the airport to Oslo Central station in 20 minutes. The trains are frequently crowded. This is an excellent service. Compare this to the "service" OC Transpo will be providing to Ottawa airport. A diesel train a couple of stops to the Trillium line, change to another diesel train to Bayview, then change to the electric Confederation line to get downtown. Tourists are going to love this with their large cases. We took a KLM flight to Amsterdam where  we changed to a KLM flight to Montreal and finally the KLM bus to Ottawa. We had anticipated some problems in Amsterdam with a relatively short transfer but everything worked out to the minute. The cabin crew on the flight from Oslo were g
Read more

Sunday 3 September - Hochdorf Open Day and the Swiss Museum of Transport

Image
We had two objectives today :- Visit the open day at Hochdorf, on the Seethalbahn, which is now a country branch operated by the SBB.  From there we planned to go to Lucerne and visit the Transport Museum.  From Zurich we took a local train to Brugg where we changed to another local train to Lenzburg. The Seethalbahn starts from a platform across the road from the main station. Leaving Lenzburg one has the impression that this is just a local town run. But very quickly we leave the houses behind, the land turns green and a church on a green treed hill indicates the real nature of this branch line which is to serve the local farming communities. The small villages are built around a typical church with its clock and spire, and many of the larger backyards contain apple trees. Farming is mixed with some arable, particularly corn and sunflowers but also there are cattle and presumably pigs in the farms as well. The train service is quite good there being at least two an hour in each direc
Read more