The Na­tion­al Trust says it is com­mit­ted to pre­serv­ing both ur­ban and rur­al her­itage as­sets. This is ac­cord­ing to Graeme Suite, Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment & Mar­ket­ing Co­or­di­na­tor at the Na­tion­al Trust of T&T.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Na­tion­al Trust re­gard­ing its role in the preser­va­tion of a 150-year-old wa­ter tank at Ca­paro in cen­tral Trinidad .

Res­i­dent of the area, Paras Ra­moutar, com­plained that the his­toric land­mark was rot­ting away.

The tank was used in the days of the rail­way be­fore it was closed in 1965 to pro­vide wa­ter to steam dri­ven/coal pow­ered lo­co­mo­tives.

Ra­moutar said he had lob­bied all gov­ern­ments for the past 20 years to re­store the tank. How­ev­er, he was blanked by every­one.

The Cou­va/Tabaquite/ Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion told Guardian Me­dia they have plans to re­store the struc­ture in a bid to boost lo­cal tourism in that re­gion.

Suite said, “We ap­pre­ci­ate the im­pas­sioned mes­sage re­gard­ing the Ca­paro Wa­ter Tank and its sig­nif­i­cant role in the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s rail­way sys­tem. The Na­tion­al Trust of Trinidad and To­ba­go holds great re­spect for ad­vo­cates such as Mr Ra­moutar who are in­ter­est­ed in pre­serv­ing our rich and di­verse na­tion­al her­itage.”

He added, “The Na­tion­al Trust gives the as­sur­ance of its com­mit­ment to the con­ser­va­tion of both ur­ban and rur­al her­itage as­sets. Our man­date ex­tends to the en­tire­ty of our twin-is­land na­tion, in­clud­ing the fas­ci­nat­ing rail­way his­to­ry em­bod­ied by the Rail­way sys­tem and the Ca­paro Wa­ter Tank and oth­er sim­i­lar relics.”

The Ca­paro Wa­ter Tank is al­ready not­ed on the Na­tion­al Trust Her­itage As­set In­ven­to­ry. The reg­is­tra­tion rec­og­nizes its his­tor­i­cal, ar­chi­tec­tur­al, and cul­tur­al im­por­tance. “As part of our on­go­ing ef­forts to raise aware­ness and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for such her­itage as­sets, the Na­tion­al Trust reg­u­lar­ly hosts Her­itage Tours and some fo­cus on the his­to­ry of the rail­way sys­tem. These tours ref­er­ences sites such as the Ca­paro Wa­ter Tank, fos­ter­ing un­der­stand­ing and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for our rich his­to­ry,” Suite said.

He fur­ther said, “On the top­ic of main­te­nance, it’s cru­cial to un­der­stand that the preser­va­tion of met­al her­itage as­sets, such as the Ca­paro Wa­ter Tank, de­mands spe­cial­ized care and ex­per­tise. These struc­tures are sub­ject to unique forms of degra­da­tion, like cor­ro­sion, which need to be ad­dressed with ap­pro­pri­ate tech­niques to en­sure their preser­va­tion.”

The Na­tion­al Trust says it is ea­ger and ful­ly pre­pared to pro­vide tech­ni­cal guid­ance to the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and oth­er in­ter­est­ed par­ties to aid in the preser­va­tion of this re­mark­able rail­way rel­ic. “We be­lieve that through col­lab­o­ra­tion, we can en­sure our his­tor­i­cal as­sets are pre­served and cher­ished for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions,” he said.