International Railroad Discussion > St. Kitts Scenic Railway

Following is a compilation of the text of three email messages recently received from Steve Hites. I met Steve in Skagway, Alaska in 1982 while up there to chase and photograph WP&Y 73 as she ran from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory to Skagway, Alaska.

"Just to catch you up, I have started up a new narrow gauge railway excursion here in the Eastern Caribbean on the island of St. Kitts. (As if I didn\'t have enough to do in Skagway, Alaska!!!)."

"Yes, wife Gayla and I are still \'in Skagway,\' though I have actually been here in St. Kitts for the better part of 10 months with the railroad start-up."

"Two partners and myself (Tom Rader, owner of Colorado Railcar Manufacturing in Ft. Lupton, CO, and Jeff Hamilton of Hamilton Manufacturing - north of Seattle, builder of all the new WP&YR coaches, and the new Edaville coaches - but also from Skagway originally) have signed a 30-year exclusive agreement to operate passenger excursion trains on the tracks of the St. Kitts Sugar Manufacturing Corporation\'s 30-inch gauge line. It is 30 miles long, and runs in a complete circle around the island, just like a Lionel around a Christmas tree."

"The trip is absolutely amazing. This is the last railway left in the Eastern Caribbean. The island and the scenery looks like Maui in 1958, before anything happened there. There are 23 bridges (eight of them big ones), and fantastic views of the ocean, surf, breakers, nearby islands, volcanoes, rainforests, vervet monkeys, and fields of sugar cane. Entire elementary schools let out to wave at us as we go by (seriously!). And now, during "crop", the annual 4 1/2 month sugar cane harvest, you can watch the little orange Hunslet and Ruston-Hornsby diesels out on the line, loading up in the "loops" and pulling their "rakes" of "cane trucks" (the four-wheel cane cars). And even though they use a radio system for communications, the SSMC Railway uses a manual signalflag block system for traffic control. It is absolutely unbelievable. It is a photographer\'s paradise."

"And no one has been here yet! (I haven\'t had time to take pictures, amigo. Too busy running the railroad! ) It would be nice if someone came down here and shot something. This is too good to last forever."

"We are in full revenue service now, running five cars (see our website at www.stkittsscenicrailway.com for some images of the island and the new cars, which are unlike anything ever built in the world for narrow gauge). We usually operate about eight trains a week. No service on Sunday or Monday, and then several days when ships are in port when we run a morning and an afternoon train."

"The Fall/Winter ship schedule for 2003-2004 already looks much better. We should double the number of ships calling into St. Kitts next season. We have plans to add five more railcars to the fleet to accommodate the traffic."

"We currently have two locomotives on island, with a third coming, all little 0-6-0 Lyd2 Rumanian diesel hydraulic power originally sold to the Polish State Railways for use on a sugar beet railway. Now they are hauling passengers on a sugar CANE railway in the West Indies. They are good little engines (one lady passenger said they were "so cute", and "looked like Thomas the Tank Engine...")."

"Our primary markets are the cruise ship passengers from the major cruise lines, and the visitors staying at the resort hotels on St. Kitts and Nevis. There is also some "fly / rail / fly" business to be gained from resorts on nearby Antigua and St. Maarten. "Local" business (on-island and regional) is limited, but it can help pay for the fuel bill."

"As for the cruise lines, majority of these companies were ones which we already knew from our operations in Skagway with the WP&YR and the Street Car Company. This made it very easy to sell the new rail product. We used the White Pass model: the cruise lines want high dollar returns from On Board Revenues like shore excursions, and they will sell and push high capacity products (like a narrow gauge railway with lots of seats)."

"There is one remaining steam locomotive here on island. It is a 1916 Kerr Stuart "Brazil" Class 0-4-2 ST, St. Kitts Sugar Factory (Basseterre) No. 5 (Works No. 1314), and it was retired in 1958."

"No one knows how it survived as the other six engines in the class (there were a total of seven steam locomotives on the property in the line\'s history) were all scrapped. It is in very poor condition, rusting away on a rip track behind the factory in the boneyard with several dozen other amazing pieces of 30" gauge equipment, including the 1910-era original breakdown crane, an \'armored\' Simplex gasoline locomotive built for the trenches in WW I, and lots of wonderful ancient US and British-built first generation gasoline and diesel power."

"Our agreement with the Government here requires that we use local Kittitian employees, and so we have put together a great team all from St. Kitts for our project. Attached is a photo of our train on Christ Church Bridge."

"Anyway, that\'s the latest from crazy \'Skagway\' Steve in the Wild West Indies. Let me know if you ever get a chance to head down this way. I\'ll roll out the red carpet. We go back to Skagway for the start-up of the season there, but I will be back and forth to St. Kitts at least ten days per month through the summer."

Best Wishes and Regards,

Steve Hites, President & Director
St. Kitts Scenic Railway Ltd.
Skagway Street Car Company, Inc.

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Very interesting indeed! Rather unknown area.

If I could get away, I\'d be on the first trip!!

It was an unexpected treat on a small-ship cruise to St. Kitts when i "discovered\' this active railway, really a highlight of the trip. Best of luck, and this is just one of may attractions of a trip to this part of the world.