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Jim Horsford, The Railways of Jamaica: Through the Blue Mountains to the Blue Caribbean Sea - ? History of the Jamaica Government Railway, London: Paul Catchpole, 2010, 168 pp.
The railways of Jamaica have been through more changes than most British colonial railways. In the 160-plus years of their existence they have been influenced by both British and American ideas on railway construction and operation. Jamaican railways have passed from steam to diesel traction, and now, having once had heavy passenger traffic, are used exclusively for traffic relating to the alumina and bauxite industry.
Opened between Kingston and Spanish Town in 1845 with British finance and locomotives made in Manchester, the railway was owned by a private company for more than thirty years before passing into government ownership in 1879. This government takeover enabled extensions of the then existing railways to Ewarton and Porus via May Pen to be built.
For ten years, from 1890, the American-owned West India Improvement Company operated the railways and introduced American equipment and ways of working. It was during this period that the extension of the lines from Porus to Montego Bay, and from Bog Walk to Port Antonio was completed. With these extensions railways spanned the island from east to west and south to north, transporting passengers and freight, including peasant crops. Returning to state control, the railway remained from...