A Ride on the Bus

A hundred or more people rushed to get the bus. It is supposed to carry 28 and no more according to law, but nobody on that bus seems to have much regard for the law.

The seats go to the victors in the battle of the doorway; though a couple have, as usual, cheated and scrambled through the window. Then the aisle fills up, while those seated have to keep ducking their heads lest they get decapitated by the bags and boxes being slung about as if it were an empty warehouse instead of a public conveyance full of seated passengers.

At last, there are 35 people in the bus and it is a physical impossibility for anyone else to get in without bursting the steep side of the body. Then the conductor arrives on the scene with a palet in his mouth, to announce that the bus they are in is no longer going. All out! And take the bus behind. Irate, having fought and won a battle to be robbed as easily of the fruits of victory, the passengers abuse the government, the railway, the driver, the conductor and then each other and each other's parents.

Now the scramble to get out instead of getting in takes place. While this is going on, the seats and windows get damaged and the passengers emerge to find their clothes torn. The other bus is already nearly full, so only ten out of the thirty-five get a passage to their home, thirty miles away.

At last, the bus starts. In the aisle, there is a woman who has settled herself on the floor, clucking like a hen as she does so. She gradually diverts herself of clothing as if she were home and prepared for bed; first comes off the stocking and shoe. Then she loosens her bodice and pulls her skirt up around her waist.

As she makes herself "comfortable", she naturally encroaches upon the space occupied by her tightly packed fellow passengers. When they try to assert their rights to the few inches they are sitting, lying or standing on, she rises, clucking furiously. She looks so formidable that everyone is silenced and she subdues, bristling her feathers as she does so.

She is the terror of the trip, that is, until two urchins get in and take up position on either side of her. They lean on her, press on her head and step on her outstretched nude legs. When she starts to cackle, they giggle and pay her no mind. At last, she can bear it no longer, rises with a titanic effort and throws them off, exclaiming, "Crise! You all want to stifle me!"

As the bus approaches within five miles of her destination, she starts to re-dress and make her toilet for arrival. Her stockings are pulled on and then begins the hunt between everybody's legs for the missing shoe that has got shoved around in the mêlées until it has found itself behind the tool box next to the chauffeur's seat. She makes such a noise and accuses so many people of stealing her almost heel-less shoe that everyone joins the search until it is recovered. The chauffeur, who eventually picks it up and returns it to her, gets roundly abused for his pains. But he is the only person in the bus that is her match. In fact, he surpasses her. In the city's tramcar is written: "It is forbidden for the chauffeur to talk to the passengers while the bus is in motion", for from the time the bus has left its starting place, the chauffeur has harangued the bus. Not for a moment has he let up from telling us about his private life, how he'd been to jail and how he liked it there.

At one part of his story, he was describing how he beat a fellow. To lend emphasis to the tale, he would let go the wheel and turn around to describe to the passengers with his hands how he did it. In the middle of one of his gestures, a jitney swung around a corner unexpectedly, and the chauffeur just missed having to describe to the court how it happened, with or without gesture.

Gradually, the passengers thinned out somewhat, as each village passed claimed a few, until there is actually a seat vacant. But to the amazement of the uninitiated, women waiting at the roadside are ignored when they frantically signal the bus. The chauffeur explains to his audience: "She alright, oui, let she get the next one."

The next one, as everyone knows, is four hours away. But the real explanation comes when on approaching the terminus at the other end, the chauffeur starts stopping every few hundred yards to pick up one or two men, who, from their conversation, are obviously friends. Together they sit and stand in the front of the bus, smoking away with their friend, the chauffeur, while the passengers behind look cynically at the sign right over the chauffeur's head, which warns that smoking, except on the rear seat, is strictly forbidden.

At last, the bus arrives at the last stop. The conductor, who has no further business, as the chauffeur is supposed to collect the tickets, now stands astride the doorway, making it difficult for passengers to leave. The passengers themselves have by now become so much a part of the environment created by the chauffeur and his conductor that they fight one another to get out of the bus, into the village, which is devoid of anything except for a few stray pouches slinking around the empty butcher's stall. The bus then turns around and begins another of its reluctant efforts to transport people.

The History of Transportation

All aboard!

‘Modern’ Trinidad is suffocating in the fumes and the noise of cars, trucks, vans and buses. Perhaps a just punishment for scrapping the coastal steamers and the trams and trains!

Public transport is a major aspect in the development of a country. In Trinidad, the first steps in that direction were taken in 1813, when a regular paddle-steamer service started between San Fernando and Port-of-Spain. The first of these commuter paddle-steamers was called the Woodford, and she was to be followed by a series of steamers that took up service, e.g. in 1837 by the Paria, in 1839 by the Lady McLeod, in 1853 by the Rothsay Castle and the Lord Harris. These steamers included La Brea and Cedros in their schedule. They were joined by the Janet Tennant and the William Burnley (both named after sugar barons of the day), and afterwards by the Alice and the Arthur.

To go down the islands, one had to rely on open boats in the early days. But in the late 19th century and up to the 1950s, there was an island steamer service in place. The first of these steamers was called the Ant and the last one the Lady Hollis, which stopped at Carenage, the Five Islands, Carrera, Gasparee, Monos and Huevos. A popular afternoon outing was a round-trip from Port-of-Spain to Chacachacare, which cost 60 cents including a delightful tea served on board!

Railway Fares (Single ticket, 2nd class)
Port-of-Spain to San Juan	$ 0.16
Port-of-Spain to Arima	$ 0.64
Port-of-Spain to Sangre Grande`	$ 1.07
Port-of-Spain to San Fernando	$ 1.16
Port-of-Spain to Siparia	$ 1.53
Steamer Fares (Cabin)
San Fernando to La Brea	$ 0.72
San Fernando to Cedros	$ 1.87
Port-of-Spain to Icacos	$ 2.89
Islands and Bocas Service (Single ticket, cabin)
Port-of-Spain to Five Islands	S. 1 D. 8
Port-of-Spain to Monos	S. 3 D. 3
Monos to Chacachacare	D.10
Coastal Steamer Service (Return ticket, North Route)
Blanchisseuse to Port-of-Spain	$ 4.80
Guayaguyare to Port-of-Spain	$ 3.20
Toco to Scarborough	$ 2.22
Scarborough to Bloody Bay	$ 1.60
Speyside to Port-of-Spain	$ 5.00
Scarborough to Port-of-Spain	$ 3.20

(Source: Franklin’s Yearbook of 1916)

When Tobago became a part of the colony on the 1st January, 1886, most of the vessels exporting produce to Trinidad were owned by Tobagonians. A weekly service to was started to the sister isle in 1910 with the Spey and Kenneth. In 1931, the Belize was one of a number of ships which serviced Tobago, followed by the Trinidad and the Tobago, which operated until 1957, and the City of Port-of-Spain and the Silver Arrow until 1960.

Up to 1844, there was no paved road to San Fernando, only a macadam track called ‘royal road’. Transport was an entirely private task, with horses over the few bridle-paths and Amerindian footwalks, with boats from bay to bay around the island and into the rivers. Streets were almost non-existent in Spanish times and for years after the English conquest. In Port-of-Spain, there were grass markets at Marine Square, just behind the cathedral, and at Sh... pasture, now Victoria Square, where grass for animals was sold.

William Tucker established the first horse-drawn omnibus service for passengers and packages between the capital and Arima in 1848, thus inaugurating the era of public transport on land. This omnibus service continued until 1862, at a charge of 10 cents per mile. It took about a day to get to Arima!

In the same year, Messrs P. & H. Creteau began a system of horse-drawn cabs. These cabs continued in Port-of-Spain until 1930, when the motor-car taxi cab arrived. The competitor for the Creteaus was from 1879 onwards Mr. Roblins of New York, who laid down a system of tramways in the streets of the city. In 1883, Roblins commenced the first mule-drawn tram. On the La Basse, near the railway station, were large mule stables with standing room for about 80 animals. The Red Tram started at Queen’s Wharf (now where City Gate is), along South Quay, up St. Vincent Street, turned west along Tragarete Road and up Cipriani Boulevard to the corner of Queen’s Park. The Blue Tram’s route included Queen’s Wharf, Almond Walk (now Broadway), up Frederick Street to Memorial Park, along Keate Street, along Charlotte Street and the Queen’s Park Savannah east up to the café at Belmont Circular Road.

In 1895, the trams were electrified and the mules went into retirement. The press remarked that their ‘speed was very high, fully 15 miles per hour’. To make room for the rails, the fountain on Marine Square was taken down and promptly disappeared. It was shaped in the form of a child, holding a swan lighlty by the neck, and stood where the statue of Captain A.A. Cipriani now is. The Red Tram ran from the top of Cipriani Boulevard to Tragarete Road and turned westward towards Cocorite. At the corner of Park and Frederick Street was the Transfer Station. The St. Clair, Belmont and Four Roads trams met here, and passengers could get a transfer from one tram to another without paying an extra fee. The trams were abolished in 1950.

What is now the busy ‘City Gate’, where thousands of commuters board the puffing blue buses and try to squeeze yet another basket into the endless stream of maxis, was once a proper railway station. Looking up into the cast-iron roof structure, one can still make out the elegance of the vanished platforms with a little imagination.

The first mule-drawn train ran between Cipero Creek and San Fernando in April 1859. Besides carrying produce from the sugar estates to the Creek, from where it was carried by barges to the steamers offshore, this was also a very popular mode of travel for the country and estate people. In 1864, the first steam locomotive came into operation, pulling the carriages from Cipero Creek all the way to Princes Town. In 1876, the rails from Port-of-Spain towards the east were completed and a train went on its way to Arima. It wasn’t until 1892 that the rails from San Fernando were extended all the way to Port-of-Spain, since transport by rail was much more expensive than by the sea. The two last extensions of the railway system were to Guanapo in 1896 and to Sangre Grande one year later.

During the first world war the locomotives were converted from coal to oil, and in the Second World War, when spare parts for cars were rare, the train saw another boom. The entire railway system, however, was scrapped in 1966, one year after the last train ran to San Fernando, making way for the motor car in its various incarnations, which had been on the scene since 1900.