St Clair
Lost in the Wilderness
by
Gyan C A Fernando
In
the very first issue of LRD (Lanka Railway Digest) we ran an article entitled: “Glenanore: A well preserved plantationrailway siding in Sri Lanka”
The article opened with the statement “Plantation
railway sidings or estate platforms on the Sri Lankan Railway are little used
nowadays, some have become stations and some have completely disappeared.” More......
On a
recent visit to the St Clair tea plantation (February 2013), Lahiru
Weerasinghe and myself, tracked down this siding and recorded what remained of
it for posterity.
 |
| The St Clare abandoned railway siding |
Officially
designated as SCP, 114:69, according to David Hyatt, the SCP is the
three-letter coding of Sri Lankan railway stations and halts and the
figures indicate its situation at a distance of 114 miles and 69 chains from
the old Colombo Terminus.
In
spite of its present state of disuse and misuse, it is relatively easy to find
it as it is in very close proximity to the St Clair tea factory in
Talawakelle.
The
platform and the building itself are intact and the tri-lingual
Sinhala-Tamil-English name is also intact as is the train timetable painted
next to it.
Unfortunately
the walls are covered in ingrained and gouged-out graffiti which is rather sad.
At
one time there apparently was a conveyor system to convey produce from the
factory to the platform, the pillars of which still remain. A new building has
been built between the factory and the platform building which of course has
changed the original layout and the appearance.
Still, it is nice to know that
the St Clair plantation halt is still standing.
Whilst
it is fairly obvious that the platform/halt was named after the tea plantation,
it is not clear why the plantation, and the nearby waterfall, were named after
St Clair.
St
Clair (also commonly spelt as “St Clare” and “St. Claire”) was a Catholic saint
of Italian origin and the name is ubiquitous.
 |
| St Claire tea plantation factory and semaphore signal |
Copyright Gyan C A Fernando
All photographs are by the author and copyright
First published in the Lanka Railway Digest
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