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Public-Private Partnership Being Explored To Expand Train Service

On April 16, 2011, Mike Henry (right), who was minister of transport and works at the time, launched the return of the railway system. The moment was shared with fellow government ministers Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange and Andrew Holness, along with chairman of the Jamaica Railway Corporation, Barry Bonitto (left).
On April 16, 2011, Mike Henry (right), who was min­is­ter of trans­port and works at the time, launched the return of the rail­way sys­tem. The moment was shared with fel­low gov­ern­ment min­is­ters Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange and Andrew Holness, along with chair­man of the Jamaica Railway Corporation, Barry Bonitto (left).

Among his first tasks as the new­ly appoint­ed min­is­ter of trans­port and min­ing, Mike Henry said he was explor­ing a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship for the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of the rail­way ser­vice. Minister Henry said that Jamaica, in adopt­ing a mod­ern-day inte­grat­ed mul­ti-modal trans­port sys­tem, of which the rail­way is a key com­po­nent, would be embrac­ing the real­i­ty of the chang­ing and fast-paced world in which we live. “The rail­way is the most impor­tant ele­ment of trans­port any­where in the world, and Jamaica has the sec­ond old­est rail­way in the world, con­nect­ing every port in Jamaica. We exist in a just-in-time world where you need to deliv­er goods and ser­vices as ear­ly as pos­si­ble, in order to be on top of the niche mar­kets and be able to grow your econ­o­my,” he explained. “This means that if the econ­o­my must grow, it must get its goods and ser­vices right there. We are, there­fore, going to con­nect rail, sea and air,” the min­is­ter added.

FAST-PACED WORLD

Henry said the rail­way cur­rent­ly runs from Pechon Street in down­town Kingston to Vernamfield in Clarendon, but not into any of the inter­na­tion­al air­ports, and this would facil­i­tate the move­ment of car­go into the pro­posed Vernamfield devel­op­ment. He said that a dis­tin­guish­ing fea­ture of many mod­ern coun­tries, as they embrace the fast-paced world, is the build­ing of under­ground rail­ways to facil­i­tate the nec­es­sary ele­ments of con­nec­tiv­i­ty. “You must move from rail to sea to air, so the rail­way must be re-estab­lished,” he empha­sised. The min­is­ter said that the numer­ous hous­ing devel­op­ments in the Old Harbour area that are not linked to the high­way present an oppor­tu­ni­ty for pas­sen­ger trains. “We should not be afraid of inte­grat­ing these ser­vices to the eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment of the peo­ple and the coun­try, so I am now explor­ing a rail­way devel­op­ment very urgent­ly,” he said. In 2011, as the min­is­ter of trans­port and works, Henry was instru­men­tal in the reha­bil­i­ta­tion and return of the train ser­vice to Jamaica, which had been dor­mant for 19 years.: http://​jamaica​glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​6​0​3​1​7​/​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​p​r​i​v​a​t​e​-​p​a​r​t​n​e​r​s​h​i​p​-​b​e​i​n​g​-​e​x​p​l​o​r​e​d​-​e​x​p​a​n​d​-​t​r​a​i​n​-​s​e​r​v​ice