St Kitts and Nevis
Sugar reached St Kitts in 1643 and by 1775 the island had two hundred estates and was the wealthiest possession Britain owned — a fortune built on enslaved labour and on a crop that sent European navies to war over islands you can drive round in an afternoon.
When beet sugar broke the price, the answer was a single central factory at Basseterre and a thirty-inch-gauge railway round the island to feed it, built between 1912 and 1926. It ran only for the February-to-June harvest, and it outlasted every other cane line in the Caribbean. The last sugar train came in on 31 July 2005. The railway is still there — and it now carries visitors round the same circuit in double-decked carriages with the roof open.
Rail journeys in St Kitts and Nevis
Good to know
What rail journeys are there in St Kitts and Nevis?
One, and that is the whole of it. The St. Kitts Scenic Railway runs a three-hour circuit of the island on the old sugar-cane line — eighteen miles by train and twelve by bus — in double-decked carriages with an open upper deck, a bar and a three-voice choir. There is no other railway in the federation: Nevis has never had one, having given up sugar in the 1930s before a line was ever laid.
Is it really the last railway in the West Indies?
No, and it is worth being straight about it. That is the railway's slogan, and it is a good one, but there are working railways elsewhere in the region — in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Martinique and above all Cuba, which still has a national network. What is genuinely true is narrower and rather more poignant: this is the last of the Caribbean cane railways, the sole survivor of the hundreds of little industrial lines that once ran on every sugar island in the Antilles.
How do I book, and how much of it is actually a train?
Eighteen of the thirty miles are by rail; the rest is a sightseeing bus, and the tour may run bus-first — worth knowing if the railway is why you are going. Cruise passengers must book through their ship's shore-excursion desk, because those seats are reserved in blocks. Independent travellers book through a hotel tour desk or direct with the railway on (869) 465-7263. No fare is published, so ask when you book.
When does the train run?
The schedule is variable and is driven by cruise-ship calls. The operator offers multiple departures most days from November to April, and a reduced schedule from May to October — during which there is a real chance of no train at all on a given day. Confirm before you travel, and certainly before you fly in for it. December to April is also the dry season; August to October is hot, wet and hurricane season.