Scaled down rail service to remain until new school year

• May Pen to Spanish Town route being explored

With the reopening of the Bog Walk gorge road in St Catherine, the Ministry of Transport and Works yesterday said the train service between Linstead and Spanish Town will be scaled down to one trip daily, as of this Wednesday, until the new school year gets fully under way on September 12.

"The service will involve a 6:30 a.m. departure from Linstead, arriving in Spanish Town at 7:15 a.m.," the ministry said in a release. "In the evenings, the train will depart Spanish Town at 6 and arrive at Linstead at 6:45."

The ministry noted that between now and the full start of the new school year, the rail service would be assessed in terms of the anticipated increase in commuter demands associated with the school system.

Additionally, the Jamaica Railway Corporation is now actively exploring the option of extending the rail service to the May Pen to Spanish Town route for the new school year.

The rail service forms part of the Rural/Urban Transport Programme being developed by the transport ministry as part of its overall multi-modal transport policy. Similarly to how passenger rail service is to be reintroduced to the wider central Jamaica, the publicly operated bus service is to be channelled into areas like Clarendon and Manchester to give commuters more options in terms of the modes of transportation that are available to them.