In the sugar cane fields of the Naparimas in south Trinidad, the Colonial Company, owners of Usine Ste Madeleine, built the largest sugar refinery in the British Empire in 1870. The mega-factory could refine 460 tons of sugar per day in crop season, using the vacuum pan system and so needed a more efficient way of getting the canes from the fields to the plant.The intermittent and slow feeder system of mule carts had to be upgraded. Beginning in the 1880s, a new arrangement was introduced. On the estates owned or associated with the Colonial Company and whose canes were processed at Usine Ste Madeleine (Petit Morne, Golconda, Malgretoute, Retrench, Picton, Hermitage, Inverness, Bronte, Cupar Grange, Craignish, Wellington, Union Hall, St Clement's, etc), canes were cut and loaded onto mule carts which would haul them to new railheads at strategic locations, where manually cranked cranes would be used to load the bundles onto rail-carts to be delivered to the factory.
A glimpse of the busy rail-yard was provided in 1887 by J H Collens as follows: "When a stranger, during crop season, enters the busy mill-yard, with its network of railway lines–a sort of miniature Clapham Junction in its way–its lively little locomotives, Kit, Dart, and other members of the family, hurrying in with any amount of noisy bustle from all sides, with their burden of canes in tow–Here we see seven of these small but powerful Puffing Billies, six being constantly on the go during the busy period, with 104 clean, strongly-built trucks, carrying six tons each, for the transport of the canes from the different estates to the central factory."
In the early 1900s, steam-powered cranes were shunted out to the loading areas on the rails, where they were infinitely more efficient than the old manual derricks–although the latter would see use until the 1950s.In 1947, Tate and Lyle, the successive owner of the Usine, purchased a fleet of Jones KL44 cranes with a 2.5-ton lifting capacity. The early models were equipped with crawler tracks which gave them extreme off-road mobility. The Jones cranes (made in the UK) were also diesel-powered, which gave them great durability, power and efficiency advantages over the old steam cranes. The last steam crane was retired in 1960.
From the 1950s until about 1967, Jones Super 44 cranes were imported. These had wheels instead of tracks and were uniquely adapted to running on both paved surfaces as well as rails. The standard steel wheels were grooved to run on railways, but could be shod in truck-tyre treads (as most were) and used on pavement. The KL 44 and Super 44 also dispensed with the old weighing system.When indentured Indians were sent to estates, they were paid according to task work. In crop time, the driver would come out to the fields and assign a portion of canes to be harvested for the day, for which a fixed rate would be paid (in 1910, it was about 20 cents per task).
During crop time, on those estates which paid for task work according to weight, a portable scale would be placed in the field to be harvested and labourers would bring canes to place on it by turns. The weight would be graded by the ton and noted next to the labourer's name. The cut canes would be loaded onto mule carts and taken to the estate railhead. The Jones cranes had scales attached to the booms which would simultaneously weigh and hoist the cane into the railcarts. This was also beneficial for small cane farmers who had no means of weighing and who sold cane to the factory per ton.
An interesting anomaly of the sugar plantation social pecking order was that the crane driver was the most respected man in the lower orders for the necessary skill and dexterity it took to operate these cranes.In the 1950s, the Jones cranes were supplemented by a number of huge, tracked Ruston Bucyrus units, capable of lifting five tons, but these were mostly used in outlying areas not touched by the railheads. When taskers or cane trucks began making an appearance in the 1950s, the crane-scales were also used to load them.Those who remember the cane districts of the island could tell that crop time had commenced in earnest when they saw the crane booms towering over the fields. The crane-scales were used for the last time in 2007 and are now rusting in the yard at Usine Ste Madeleine.