THE RECENT visit to Jamaica of Mr. Digvijay Singh, India's Minister of External Affairs, does not seem to have brightened the prospects for the divestment and rejuvenation of the island's railway system, an initiative which over many years of talk has stalled and now appears to be derailed. This is a pity because we inherited from the British at Independence a rail infrastructure that we brilliantly engineered and, if properly maintained, could have made a major contribution to trans-island trade and commerce.
Before the advent of the railway, the movement of cargo in and out of Kingston was by coastal schooners, a picturesque but inefficient mode of transport. Upon the demise of the railway, goods began to be moved by heavy trucks over a fragile and winding road system, often damaged by the unrestricted weight of vehicles passing over it. A main trans-island road over Mount Rosser and Mount Diablo linking Kingston to the North Coast has seen some improvement in the Faith's Pen area, but is still time-consuming.
There was a time when the Railway Corporation provided a much utilised transportation service for people and cargo by a network of lines which linked Kingston to some of our principal towns over 250 miles of track linking 34 stations; destinations such as May Pen, Williamsfield, Balaclava, Catadupa and Montego Bay, Annotto Bay, Buff Bay and Port Antonio, Bog Walk and Linstead. The popular Governor's Coach ran a fast diesel rail service between Kingston and Montego Bay which cut by half the time to travel by road.
Discussions on the divestment of the railroad took place some years ago with a consortium of Jamaican business leaders but come to naught because, as so often happens in these cases, Government insisted on the right to regulate fares, a proposition not attractive to investors afraid of government's aversion to the profit motive. The price set by government was also much too high, given the dilapidated condition of tracks, rolling stock and stations.
It would be good if Indian interest in the railway could be rekindled as a result of Minister Singh's visit. The Indian railway system, covering 62,000 kilometres of track lining 7000 stations, is the largest corporate employer in the world with over 1.6 million personnel on the payroll. Indian management and/or investment would ensure a wealth of expertise in a revived Jamaican railway.
Perhaps a formula can be worked out involving a long-term lease of the assets, bearing in mind that what we want is a return of the service, not necessarily an infusion of capital.
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