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St Kitts Railway, The by Jim Horsford From sugar cane to scenic train
St Kitts Railway, The by Jim Horsford From sugar cane to scenic train
Soft Cover
64 pages
Copyright 2004
CONTENTS
Introduction 4
Sugar in St. Kitts5
The Railway11
The Route of the Railway 14
Operation of the Line35
Steam Locomotives44
Diesel Locomotives45
St. Kitts Sugar Corporation Rolling Stock -54
Wagons and Permanent Way Carriages
The St. Kitts Railway Passenger Train Saga57
The St. Kitts Scenic Railway Limited (SKSR)58
Appendices63
INTRODUCTION
St. Christopher (St. Kitts) is a small island in the north-eastern part of the Caribbean Sea. It is part of the group known as the Leeward Islands. These, in turn, are part of the chain of islands known as the Lesser Antilles, marking the eastern edge of the Caribbean. St. Christopher is about 50 miles west of Antigua and 45 miles south of the Dutch/French island of St. Maarten.
During the eighteenth century, St. Christopher began to be known by its more familiar name, St. Kitts. The shorter name has now taken the place of the correct title on virtually everything except official documents. Certainly, residents always refer to the island as St. Kitts. They themselves are known as Kittitians.
Like its immediate but smaller island neighbours, Nevis and (Dutch) St. Eustatius and Saba, St. Kitts is of volcanic origin. All four islands are basically part of a single mountain chain rising from the floor of the Caribbean. Formed by violent volcanic activity millions of years ago, much of the mountain range sank back below sea level, to become covered with marine deposits ultimately forming limestone. Subsequent eruptions formed the islands exposed today. St. Kitts is almost entirely volcanic rock, with some limestone outcrops. The channels separating St. Kitts from Nevis (in the south) and St. Eustatius (in the north) are relatively shallow - generally less than a hundred feet deep - as submerged banks connect the islands at these points.
St. Kitts is about 19 miles long and only six miles wide, with a total land area of about 68 square miles (176 square kilometres). For such a small island, though, St. Kitts has a varied landscape, including a series of imposing mountains. The highest point, in the north of the island, is Mount Liamuiga (formerly called
Mount Misery), rising to 1,155 metres (3,790 feet), with an imposing volcanic crater. Much of the island is cultivated up to a height of seven or eight hundred feet. Above this level, remnants of the island's natural rainforest are to be found.
The island - like many others in the area - was first sighted by Europeans when Christopher Columbus sailed on his second voyage of discovery. Contrary to popular belief, St. Christopher, which Columbus sighted on 13 November 1493, was neither named after the explorer himself nor his patron saint. In claiming the island for Spain, he called the island San Jorge. It became San Criston later Spanish maps. No settlement of the island was attempted by the Spanish. Instead, the island was left to the native Carib indians. The first permanent settlement came in 1624 when Thomas Warner founded an English settlement at what is now Old Road Town. The ownership - and claims of ownership - of St. Kitts changed several times between Britain and France over many decades until the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 confirmed the island as a British possession. British ownership did not prevent further attacks by the French up until the early years of the nineteenth century.
British rule of St. Kitts continued until the island, together with Nevis and Anguilla, became a self-governing Associated State on 27 February 1967. Anguilla withdrew from this arrangement - in somewhat acrimonious circumstances - and later returned to being a British Crown Colony. The two-island federation of St. Kitts and Nevis gained full independence from Britain on 19 September 1983. Today, the population of St. Kitts is almost 40,000, of whom about half live in the capital, Basseterre.
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