The St. Kitts (Basseterre) Sugar Factory was opened on 20th February 1912 to process the cane sugar from the plantations around the island, which had previously been processed by a multitude of small refineries owned by the plantations themselves.
A railway was constructed, which eventually circled the complete island to service over a dozen plantations and bring the raw cane to Basseterre Factory.
This comprised in excess of 30 miles of 30 inch gauge (or 762mm for those who only understand the French stuff) track with 25 small & large viaducts over numerous watercourses known as “Ghuts”, some up to 75 foot in length and 300 foot long.
By the 1970’s, sugar production had become uneconomic and the Government of St.Kitts & Nevis Nationalised the Factory in 1976, the plantations themselves following within the next 5 years.
Unfortunately, the industry never really returned to profitability, and with the continued emphasis on beet sugar in Europe, the market was effectively killed off, and the last trains ran about 2005.
Luckily for the railway, a large portion around the northern part of the island, about 17 miles long, has now become the St. Kitts Scenic Railway.
With 3 large Lyd2 600hp Romanian diesel locos imported from a sugar factory in Poland, and a rake of 4 air-conditioned double-deck bogie coaches for the tourist trade (mainly from passing cruise ships) it is quite busy.
(see their website
www.stkittsscenicrailway.com for info)
A visit to the sugar factory looks like they went home for tea in 2005 and just didn’t return, although one exWD Motor Rail armoured petrol loco of 1917 has been returned to Britain for preservation.
From a recent book on the railway (ISBN 1-900340-18-6) there would seem to be 1 steam Loco & 23 diesel/petrol existing on site, although I only recorded 18 on photograph.
It would need a good 2 hours to do the site justice. There are also hundreds of derelict cane wagons.
There are nearly 70 photos of the site on my Photobucket account:
http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t...gar%20Factory/
Someone elses Flickr account with pics as it was when in use:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/colinch...7607346194417/
http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t...gar%20Factory/ for the rest