Sat | Jan 11, 2025

Montague confident train ridership will climb

Only six students board morning coaches on first day of service

Published:Tuesday | January 11, 2022 | 12:08 AMRuddy Mathison/Gleaner Writer
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Students aboard a passenger train yesterday evening to make the journey home from their Spanish Town-based schools to various points across St Catherine. The service, which was rolled out yesterday, will facilitate travel for students of six schools betwee
Rudolph Brown/Photographer
Students aboard a passenger train yesterday evening to make the journey home from their Spanish Town-based schools to various points across St Catherine. The service, which was rolled out yesterday, will facilitate travel for students of six schools between the Old Capital and Linstead, Old Harbour and surrounding areas.
Jamaica Urban Transit Company Managing Director Paul Abrahams (second right) and Robin Geddes, customer service assistant, observe students boarding a train in Spanish Town on Monday. The passenger train service for students resumed on January 10, one week
Rudolph Brown/Photographer
Jamaica Urban Transit Company Managing Director Paul Abrahams (second right) and Robin Geddes, customer service assistant, observe students boarding a train in Spanish Town on Monday. The passenger train service for students resumed on January 10, one week after the start of the new academic term. The service runs between the St Catherine hubs of Spanish Town and Linstead.
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If the six students aboard the two trains that pulled into the Spanish Town terminal for the start of the new commuter rail service yesterday is any indication of its future passengerload, it could bring into question its viability, especially at a time when the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) is reeling from financial woes.

The long-awaited service for students who have to commute from Linstead, Old Harbour and surrounding areas to Spanish Town for school got rolling yesterday to afford children the ease of travelling by passenger train into the Old Capital and being shuttled from the station to schools in the vicinity via JUTC buses.

The service is being operated in two segments of the existing network in the parish of St Catherine and is expected to provide safe and cost-effective transport for school-age children who depend on public transportation.

In welcoming the students on Monday, outgoing Transport Minister Robert Montague was not deterred by the low ridership aboard the two trains, citing that the non-collection of cards by some students from the participating schools had contributed to the situation.

“The Ministry of Education has indicated that they will get their cards today and tomorrow in full because all the students don’t come back on the same day, so it will take a couple of days to get to the full 400 students,” Montague disclosed, adding that this was the maximum number of passengers permitted by the Ministry of Health & Wellness in light of the pandemic.

He said that he is hoping to increase the number over time and that currently, the expectation is for parents to take the students to the train station 15 minutes before boarding so that they can get sanitised.

Montague said that he is also proposing to the Cabinet a further expansion of the Jamaica rail service on a phased basis, as the island celebrates its 60th anniversary of Independence, to minimise the amount of traffic on the roads.

Elicia Thompson, one of the students who utilised the train service yesterday, was happy for the initiative, noting that a difficulty in getting taxis often meant being late for school.

“Where we live at Hartlands, it is very hard to get a taxi, so the fact that there is a train coming, it is very good for us. All we have to do is just wake up and catch it,” she said. “It was our first time on it and we didn’t know what to expect, but the ride was very good.”

ruddy.mathison@gleanerjm.com