What happened to the eight railways that were used to haul produce and mahogany in Belize?
- Posted by Frantz Smith
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Rail was also used in the transport of mahogany in our country. Three main railway systems were built in Belize. These were in the Stann Creek, Orange Walk and the Cayo districts. The first of these was the railway in the Stann Creek district built primarily for transport of bananas from the Stann Creek Valley to Stann Creek Town. This rail also carried logs extracted from forests in the Stann Creek district. The Stann Creek railway was closed in 1938 and parts of this were transferred to other locations in Belize as well as Jamaica.
The second rail was built at the Vaca Falls area in the Cayo District. A railroad was also built at the B.E.C. estate between Gallon Jug and Hill bank in the Orange Walk district (Figure 10). A overhead cable line was also built in Mullins River. Besides these, there were 5 other smaller railways build at isolated locations in the country (See: Weaver, P. L., and Sabido, O. A. (1997). “Mahogany in Belize: A historical perspective.”)
There was only a brief romance with steam engines for mahogany extraction in Belize because more practical types of engines were soon introduced.