Michelle Loubon

Mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Trust Coun­cil and Trinidad Rail­way Her­itage Net­work, Jalaludin A Khan is ap­peal­ing to new­ly ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Trans­port De­vant Ma­haraj and the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) to part­ner in pro­tect­ing and con­serv­ing T&T rail­way her­itage sites. He al­so sug­gests her­itage mu­se­ums fea­tur­ing rail­way his­to­ry be es­tab­lished at three ma­jor car­di­nal point-North, South and Cen­tral. To­ba­go was not part of the rail­way ex­pe­ri­ence. Khan made these com­ments at a lec­ture themed Dis­cov­er­ing and Con­serv­ing Trinidad's Rail­way Her­itage held at NA­PA, Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain. Fel­low pre­sen­ter Wayne Abra­ham re­searcher and Mem­ber of the Rail­way Her­itage Net­work cap­tured the nos­tal­gia of a train era gone by with his colour pho­tographs. He in­cor­po­rat­ed black and white pho­tographs from PTSC and for­eign rail­way en­thu­si­asts.

Train chug­ging; the footage looked as though plucked from a West­ern movie. It was host­ed by deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Vel Lewis. Par­tic­i­pants were in­vit­ed to Bring Your Mem­o­ries and Come. The ses­sion was in­ter­ac­tive and par­tic­i­pants were en­cour­aged to in­ter­ject and share train vi­gnettes. Khan said: "We are ap­peal­ing to the new Min­is­ter of Trans­port and by ex­ten­sion the PTSC board to help us. The mu­se­um could be at the PTSC (PoS), the for­mer rail­way sta­tion at Cou­va and at the for­mer San Fer­nan­do Rail­way Sta­tion which fall un­der the man­age­ment of the PTSC." He al­so is­sued an ap­peal to the cit­i­zen­ry to as­sist with archiv­ing by do­nat­ing pho­tographs, tick­ets, news­pa­per clip­pings, mem­o­ra­bil­ia in­clud­ing whis­tles.

Khan urged the pop­u­lace, es­pe­cial­ly the el­der­ly to con­tribute by way of oral his­to­ry. He added: "We wel­come your feed­back and rec­om­men­da­tions. We want to em­pow­er you to em­pow­er your­self. So far, we have seen some items. Thanks to PTSC. The chal­lenge is to get peo­ple to take train his­to­ry for­ward."

Par­tic­i­pants learned T&T boasts 159 years of rail­way. They al­so learned the lo­co­mo­tive is the en­gine that pulls the car­riages and the com­bi­na­tion is called a train.

Trains scrapped

Khan lament­ed the ma­jor­i­ty of trains had been scrapped. Thus, it was even more crit­i­cal and time­ly for rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to part­ner with the Trust. He said: "The ma­jor­i­ty of trains have been sold as scrap iron. It in­cludes a se­ries of lo­co­mo­tives out­side St Madeleine. "Many of the TGR trains were stocked in the St Joseph Sta­tion and car­riages and lo­co­mo­tives sold and scrapped." To date Khan said, "about sev­en lo­co­mo­tives with one sug­ar car­riage (Di­vali Na­gar) have with­stood the test of time. "Three lo­co­mo­tives are at the Usine St Madeleine sug­ar com­pound. They are at Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, Brechin Cas­tle, Cou­va, Pt Lisas and the Fort San An­dres, PoS Mu­se­um. A pas­sen­ger car­riage is lo­cat­ed at the en­trance to the Fer­nan­des Com­pound and Neal and Massy Ltd, Mor­vant." Abra­ham added: "The train at the Di­vali Na­gar is the on­ly true train be­cause it con­sists of a lo­co­mo­tive and a cane wag­on."

Abra­ham: Train pic­tures worth 1,000 words

The lec­ture had ad­ver­tised Nev­er Be­fore Seen Footage of Trinidad Rail­ways. Bor­row­ing the adage, "A pic­ture can be worth 1,000 words," Abra­ham de­liv­ered. Guests went cross-coun­try­ing as Abra­ham made pit stops at sites in­clud­ing the Ca­roni Rail­way Sys­tem, Gol­con­da Sig­nal Box, San Fer­nan­do/Siparia Line, Tu­na­puna Rail­way Sta­tion and Pe­nal Pow­er Sta­tion. Ver­dant scenery fringed the back­ground and crawled across some of the land­marks like Knol­ly's Tun­nel (Tabaquite) and the Old Cu­mu­to Rail­way Sta­tion, east Trinidad. Abra­ham even stopped at pi­o­neer William Ec­cles' tomb­stone. Ec­cles died on Au­gust 20, 1855 and ini­ti­at­ed the first line from San Fer­nan­do to Princes Town. The grave site is lo­cat­ed at St Mary's An­gli­can Church, Tacarigua.

Sav­ing T&T trains

Khan can be con­tact­ed at 743-1604; e-mail jkhanTT@gmail.com and Abra­ham at 784-3558

The Trust can be con­tact­ed at 623-5941 or na­tion­al­trust.tt@gmail.com.