Minister of Transport and Mining Audley Shaw says the Government is prepared and committed to create the necessary partnerships for the restoration of the railway system.

Speaking during a recent tour of the Jamaica Railway Corporation’s (JRC) terminus in West Kingston, Shaw noted that Jamaica was the fourth country in the world to have a railway system and it is “unacceptable” that the country now has none.

He pointed out that reviving the railway system will reduce the cost to transport people and goods across the island.

In addition, it will reduce the cost to rehabilitate damaged road infrastructure, said the minister.

“Our roads can’t keep up with the damage from all the goods that we have to transport. When we have railway lines, we can carry goods as well as people,” he added.

But, the project will be expensive.

The revival of islandwide rail service will take “several hundred millions of US dollars,” said Shaw.

He explained that the process would include “putting in a new bridge to go to Spanish Town, and that alone is going to cost about US$8 million,” but the investment will be worthwhile.

“So… I am going to revive the railway service and if we have to do it in partnership with overseas people, who have technology and money, then we will carry out that partnership and get it done,” he emphasised.

Plans to restore the railway system

Under the Jamaica Social Intervention Community Rail Project, there is a partnership between the University of Technology (UTech) and the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom (UK).

The universities have signed a memorandum of understanding for the Jamaica Social Intervention Community Rail Project.

This is expected to preserve and promote the history of railways in Jamaica through museums and other educational outlets.

Through this partnership the Government will also restore the Kingston rail service, starting with a Culture Yard tour by 2023.

Passengers will be transported by train from Kingston to Three Miles and then to Culture Yard in Trench Town.

Oneil Josephs, head of UTech’s School of Engineering, who was also on the tour, said the partnership between the two institutions would garner significant technical knowledge and expertise in Government’s rail restoration programme.

JRDC General Manager Donald Hanson further noted that the work being done at the Kingston terminus “is the start of something major to come”.

“This initiative is just going to take us to Three Miles; but once we start, we don’t think we will stop. We want to go all the away to Montego Bay,” he said.

“We have a tourist train that will soon come on stream from Montego Bay to Appleton Estate, and the second phase is to get this train to Spanish Town, and then from Spanish Town, we can go to Appleton. But our major problem is the bridge over the Sandy Gully. It is over 800 feet long and it’s basically down in the Sandy Gully,” he pointed out.

Hanson also shared that the JRC has been receiving requests for freight service and are preparing to deliver on those requests.

There are some equipment and machinery at the Kingston terminal which are still operational.

Roy Howell, technical director for the project, said “the workshop is very much active. The school train project is also being maintained from here”.

Currently there are nine trains in the workshop, said Howell. But, they are in various states of disrepair.

“One is about 80 per cent complete [and] we hope to have it done as soon as we can get a radiator for it,” said Howell.

The school train service started in January, taking students from Old Harbour and Linstead to Spanish Town. From there, students were transported to their respective schools via Jamaica Urban Transit Company buses.