|
| | ||
| | | |
 | |
| |
 |  | ||
| | | |
Goods, or freight, traffic on the Bermuda Railway remains a bit of a mystery, at least for me. In the few sources I've seen, goods traffic is an afterthought if it's mentioned at all, clearly taking second place to the passenger traffic that was the underlying reason for the railway.
Specific freight stock included only nine assorted goods wagons: two flat cars, four gondolas, two "trailer freight vans" (i.e., box cars), and a bulk oil carrier. A few more were added over the life of the line. One specific freight operation was the regular transfer of fuel oil - in the Railway's one oil tanker - from the West India Oil Company, at Oil Docks station in St. George's parish, to a siding at Ord Road station in south shore Paget. From there the oil was pumped to the Elbow Beach Hotel. (Even today, all of Bermuda's oil comes off ships at those same oil docks and, as a result, the area is unfortunately off-limits to walkers on the Railway Trail.) Another freight working saw the transport of vegetables from Southampton parish to Hamilton Docks for shipment overseas. Centred around Evans Bay station, this seems to have been a substantial operation. In a retrospective on the Railway that appeared in the Royal Gazette in 1985, one former worker remembers 20 to 25 men working making crates and packing vegetables onto the trains. In the list of stations provided by Pomeroy, 12 are marked with a # symbol, meaning: "Stations marked # handled freight as well as passengers." Pictures of these stations show small, stone-built structures housing two, or perhaps three, rooms, at least one of which had the large double doors that would have made it suitable for handling parcels and small freight shipments. It seems likely to me that the Bermuda of the 1930s would have had a growing need to transport goods from one part of the islands to another. Remember, too, that this was a country without motor transportation. The choices for getting a crate of imported equipment from the Hamilton docks to Somerset would have been boat, horse-drawn cart or the Railway. Despite the fact that I have yet to find specific evidence, I would be surprised if the Railway did not see significant use carrying parcels and small freight (what North American railroads would call "less-than-carload" traffic). So, I am left with a question: can anyone tell me anything else about goods traffic on the Bermuda Railway? Q&A | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| | | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
© Copyright 1998-2007, Simon Horn. | ||
| | |
The available rolling stock seems to confirm this. When the railway opened, motive power included four motorized freight vans, that is, locomotives with a freight compartment instead of the passenger seating provided in the more common motor coaches. Of course, more often than not a motorized freight van would be seen pulling a regular passenger train.
