Dear Editor,
There are two factors that are absent from the analysis so far. If the railway became unprofitable for the government to run was the only alternative to close it? Could it have been put into private hands for instance? I do recall Dr. Reid admitting that it was a mistake of the goverment to close it. That implies that there was an alternative.
If the answer is that the socialist stance taken by the government at the time precluded the option of private ownership from being considered or being available, then would another socialist or communist government have done any better? Of course I am asking these questions at a time when the government of Trinidad has found it necessary to close BWIA without closing the service. It considered the continuation of the air service as important enough to continue though the service could be provided by someone else. I am not clear about the shareholding.
The second factor is the concept of backup. This is not unrelated to the first as it would figure in any analysis of the importance placed on the railway. Did it occur to the planners that with the closure of the railway, the population is connected from Berbice to Essequibo by a single strip of road (for all practical purposes) in a few places not a mile away from the ocean?
Yours faithfully,
Frederick W.A. Collins
