Bridgetown & Saint Andrews Bay 2-8-2 Locomotives in Barbados

Class Alice (Locobase 12303)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 21, p. 280. Works number was 16269-16270 in October 1898. See also Bajan Tour Girl's blog on the railway at []

Clearly intended to spread weight and power over more axles, Alice and Beatrice were the first locomotives to serve this perennially cash-strapped railway after its conversion from the narrower gauge. Only 24 miles long, the line was opened in 1873 with a 3-ft, 6-in guage. It snaked over 98 bridges around curves whose minimum radius was 150 ft (46 m or better than 20 degrees) and up 1 in 30 grades (3.3%) that themselves had curves of 250-ft radius (76 m or 15 degrees).

Financial woes were never far from undermining success and the company was reorganized in 1906 as the Barbados Light Railway Company. Bajan Tour Girl notes that it made money for a few years, but "...unfortunately mismanagement again crept in with maintenance having a low priority. Several serious derailments of train carriages and the cry "mind the doors please" assumed real significance as the doors were literally dropping off. The carriages were also infested with "Mahogany Birds" Coca Roaches."

The facts could not be ignored: "In 1937 on the advise of railway expert Mr Bland the Government of Barbados shut the railway down permanently."