Former porter recalls booming Catadupa
Published:Sunday | March 27, 2022 | 12:11 AM
Hylton Ewan remembers the joy and sense of accomplishment among vendors who sold their wares to tourists aboard passenger trains making the adventurous tour from Montego Bay, St James, to Appleton Estate in St Elizabeth decades ago as if it were yesterday.
Ewan, who served as the porter at the Catadupa train station and was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the facility, is now hoping that the much-talked-about return of the rail service will finally become a reality.
His primary role then was to communicate with and direct the train son approach with the use of flags by day and signal lamps at nights.
“It was a sad day when Mr [Robert] Pickersgill closed down the service. As they finished fixing the rails, they closed it down,” said Ewan, referring to the minister heading the transport ministry in 1992, when the service was suspended.
Former Montego Bay Mayor Glendon Harris, who is also a player in the transport sector, said the service had become “antiquated” by 1992.
“By the time the transport minister announced that the train service was coming to an end, we were way ahead with the divestment of the transportation sector, started by Edddie Seaga,” he said.
Edward Seaga was prime minister between 1980 and 1989.
News was a shock
“Montego Bay Metro was fully operational in Montego Bay and the JUTC (Jamaica Urban Transit Company) was in Kingston. This was the time when Encava buses were in full swing,” Harris told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday. “The decision was the right one at the time.”
But Ewan said the news was a shock to people earning their bread from the rail service in Catadupa.
“It stunned the entire community. We could not believe what we were hearing when the announcement was made,” said Ewan.
In its heyday, he recalled, vendors would travel from neighbouring communities to ply their trade at the Catadupa train station.
“All the shops were filled,” Ewan recalled last week. “When the train used to carry tourists, you could never find space to park. The place was packed.”
There were some 170 persons sewing clothes for the tourist passengers at the time, a unique feature in Catadupa.
Ewan said that the tailors and seamstresses would take the measurements of the passengers then went to stitch the clothes while the customer went on to tour the caves in Ipswich Town and the Appleton Estate. The finished product would be collected on the train’s return journey.
“Craft vendors were selling; food shops did good business. You rarely had a complaint from the residents because they were earning,” he said, adding that since the train service was suspended, a lot of residents have migrated from the area.
“Those days, there were not a lot of buses and taxis, so people go and come on the train, and it was a profitable time for almost everyone,” he said.
Ewan argued that the train remains a safe mode of transport, especially in the context of the high number of road deaths recorded in Jamaica annually.
“If the train start run now, people would not want to cook. It means that much to us around here, ‘’ he said.