Nass­er Khan

Writer Nass­er Khan has been re­flect­ing on sig­nif­i­cant events in T&T's his­to­ry, cap­tured through the art­form of the ca­lyp­so. In the fifth of his se­ries His­to­ry Through Ca­lyp­so, Khan high­lights the era of the train as a mode of pas­sen­ger trans­porta­tion in T&T.

Khan has cho­sen Last Train to San Fer­nan­do, com­posed by the Mighty Spit­fire in the 1940's, sung in 1950 by the Mighty Dic­ta­tor (Ken­ny St. Bernard) and lat­er pop­u­lar­ized by Amer­i­can singer John­ny Dun­can (1957) and ca­lyp­son­ian Duke of Iron (Ce­cil An­der­son) in the 1960's.

But wait! The last pas­sen­ger train to San Fer­nan­do ac­tu­al­ly made that jour­ney at 5.12 pm, to be ex­act, on Au­gust 30 1965, some 47 years ago. Suf­fice it to say that this ca­lyp­so (writ­ten many years ear­li­er) in fact had noth­ing to do with a last trip to the south land but in fact was about a woman named Dorothy hav­ing a last fling be­fore her mar­riage the next day.

In the ca­lyp­so there are warn­ings that if she does not catch the last train to San Fer­nan­do she would be stuck and not be able to get an­oth­er one, and her mar­riage the next day would be in jeop­ardy. There is ab­solute­ly noth­ing about a train line com­ing to an end in the ca­lyp­so, but a myth has grown and has be­come part of Tri­ni folk­lore.

It was af­ter three decades of ef­fort that a pas­sen­ger rail­way sys­tem was fi­nal­ly on track. Au­gust of 1876 marked the re­al start of the pas­sen­ger rail­way sys­tem in Trinidad that saw Port of Spain linked to San Juan, St Joseph and Ari­ma.

With the east-west cor­ri­dor cov­ered, it was on­to Cou­va by 1880, to serve the sug­ar planters in that re­gion, and then in 1882, south­wards to San Fer­nan­do. The west coast was now be­ing ser­viced fol­lowed in 1884, by a line from San Fer­nan­do to Princes Town. Trav­el to hith­er­to far off places was fi­nal­ly af­ford­able and avail­able.

Mean­while, the co­coa planters, like their cen­tral sug­ar-grow­ing coun­ter­parts, were ag­i­tat­ing for ex­ten­sions from Ari­ma to Gua­napo and San­gre Grande, which were grant­ed in 1896 and 1897 re­spec­tive­ly.

The next phase of the rail­way sys­tem, in 1898, saw the tracks branch­ing off the south­ern line, from Cunu­pia Farm (Jern­ing­ham Junc­tion), through the Ca­paro Val­ley and on­to Tabaquite.

So far so good with peo­ple, sug­ar and co­coa cov­ered, but how about the black gold, oil? In 1913, with the oil in­dus­try start­ing to boom, the San Fer­nan­do line was ex­tend­ed through the oil re­gions to Siparia and by 1914, the co­coa planters were grant­ed their wish of the rail­way head­ing to Rio Claro. Co­coa was in­deed king be­fore oil took over and has­tened the in­dus­try's de­cline.

With the ad­vent of a vast in­crease in the num­ber of cars in Trinidad and the im­prove­ment in the road sys­tem, the feel­ing was that the tak­ing of a taxi was more pres­ti­gious that tak­ing the train.

This, among oth­er lin­ger­ing rea­sons, such as on­go­ing fi­nan­cial loss­es along with the high cost of main­te­nance and mod­erni­sa­tion, all spelled the be­gin­ning of the end of the pas­sen­ger rail­way sys­tem.

There were grad­ual clos­ings of var­i­ous sec­tions of the routes, start­ing in 1953, but the very last train to San Fer­nan­do, was the ser­vice which de­part­ed from the Port of Spain rail­way sta­tion on Au­gust 30 1965 at 5.12 pm. The lo­co­mo­tive which hauled the last ser­vice train was TGR (Trinidad Gov­ern­ment Rail­way) Cana­di­an-built En­gine No27.

Sub­se­quent to the "last train to San Fer­nan­do" in 1965, the pas­sen­ger train sys­tem con­tin­ued in the east-west cor­ri­dor un­til the fi­nal sec­tion from Port of Spain to San Juan was closed on De­cem­ber 28 1968, 92 years since the sys­tem was first start­ed back in 1876.

Last Train to San Fer­nan­do

Last train to San Fer­nan­do

Last train to San Fer­nan­do

And if you miss this one

You'll nev­er get an­oth­er one Is the last train to San Fer­nan­do

Yes­ter­day I met with sweet Dorothy

She said, "To­mor­row I am join­ing in mat­ri­mo­ny

And if you act right

You can take me out tonight

It is wine and dine and get back in time".

CHO­RUS/MU­SIC

She said, "I am men­tor­ing in high so­ci­ety

You must be care­ful about the place you are tak­ing me

'Cause if you slip, I'll slide

And I may nev­er be a bride."

CHO­RUS MU­SIC:

Last train to San Fer­nan­do

Last train to San Fer­nan­do

And if you miss this one

You'll nev­er get an­oth­er one

Last train to San Fer­nan­do

We went to a lit­tle place up on Sug­ar Hill

It was ter­rif­ic you should have seen the size of the bill

Well it was tough, rough

I re­al­ly had to pelt a bluff

CHO­RUS MU­SIC

Diplo­mat­i­cal­ly, I asked Dorothy to dance

For on my mind I had noth­ing else but ro­mance

I said to my­self, "Boy you bet­ter beat this iron while it's hot."

CHO­RUS/MU­SIC

• Sing along at ei­ther http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd­kz-rZs3s0 or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMyNcMG7Ryk

• Bi­og­ra­phy: Michael An­tho­ny's "First in Trinidad" and "Glimpses of Trinidad and To­ba­go"; Glen Bead­on's web­site http://www.gal­bead­on.com/