Rail transport in Jamaica

[3] The railway was proposed and started by William Smith, originally from Manchester who owned land in Jamaica, and his sugar planter brother David.

[3] The system approved by the Assembly of Jamaica in 1843 was for a double track between Kingston and Spanish Town, with branch lines to Angels, Port Henderson and the Caymanas sugar estate.

[3] On 21 November 1845 the Governor of Jamaica James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and ten carriages of passengers, pulled by the companies two locomotives Projector and Patriot built by Sharp Brothers of Manchester, travelled 19 kilometres (12 mi) from Kingston to Spanish Town.

[6] After a period of decline, the new Governor Sir Anthony Musgrave agreed a deal in 1879 to buy the existing 42 kilometres (26 mi) of the system for £93,932.

[7] The Jamaican system now had a total of 298 kilometres (185 mi) of railway lines stretching from the south-eastern to the north-western and north-eastern ends of the island.

[3] The loans taken out to secure railway ownership by the company, together with its purchase of 308 square kilometres (76,000 acres) of prime Crown land in various parts of Jamaica, proved too strenuous.

[3] After a post-war report by C. E. Rooke recommended closure of the Port Antonio to Spanish Town line, the government only closed the Linstead to Ewarton branch in 1947.

[3] The 1951 hurricane brought about a recommendation by the United Nations envoy to invest in the railway to keep the bauxite traffic, and hence the passenger rates, economically viable.

[18] The company makes J$40 million per year through track user fees for the hauling of alumina and bauxite, and the residual from the rental of real estate and its three operable locomotives.

[22] Passenger service returned to Jamaica for the first time since February 1992 on 16 April 2011, when an inaugural train operated from May Pen to Linstead.

[23] There was also talk of establishing a tourist route on Jamalco's line between Rocky Point and Breadnut,[24] but all passenger services were stopped again in August 2012.

[4] In 2022, the rail status shifted again, as a passenger service began transporting students from Old Harbour and Linstead to Spanish Town.