Virtual Railfan Tour St. Kitts - 1981 was a wetter year

We had some heavy rain in 1981. I found this inspection trip on a bridge in the heavy forest.

 


The purpose was to assess the effect of last night's rain on the track.

A cane loading station with a train almost loaded.

There were some areas where the track had flooded

A St. Kitts work train

At Basseterre several hopper cars already filled with bagasse ready to be used to repair washouts.

At Basseterre this locomotive had come from the abandoned Antigua railway (Antigua No. 1)

These are sugar cars which carry the refined sugar from the factory over the short branch to the harbour

This is the venerable Armstrong Whitworth locomotive No.12 which was used on the harbour branch. It was a 12 ton, 85hp., 0-4-0 diesel electric built by AW in 1934 (serial D40). The story was that there were only two drivers who knew how to make it go. When one of them died the harbour branch was reduced from a two shift to a one shift operation. When the second man retired or died the locomotive was retired. I cannot vouch for this story but it seems like the sort of thing they would do in St. Kitts






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