KINGSTON, Jamaica — The cash-strapped Jamaica Railway Corporation (JRC) has discontinued the rail service that moved some 400 students daily between Linstead and Spanish Town in St Catherine.

The suspension was effective in January, around the same time the state-owned Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) launched a new Linstead to Spanish Town route.

The update was provided by Transport Minister Daryl Vaz at the recent sitting of the Standing Finance Committee that examined the 2025/26 Estimates of Expenditure, ahead of the Budget Debate that gets underway Tuesday at Gordon House.

Vaz, who was responding to a question from Opposition Spokesman on Transport, Mikael Phillips, as to why there was no allocation in the estimates for the JRC and whether the rail service was scrapped, revealed that the corporation had depleted its surplus of $286 million over the last few years. This, as it was forced to subsidise the rail service for students at a cost of $10 million per month.

Vaz told the committee that the equipment operated by the JRC was outdated, inefficient and very costly to maintain.

“Cabinet has mandated that we look at the new system, which may include a public-private partnership to be able to get more economical equipment to use,” he said.

“The reason for the discontinuation was strictly dollars and cents; they [JRC] just didn’t have the income anymore to subsidise $10 million a month after spending $300 million,” he stated.

Regarding the replacement bus route, the transport minister said it has been working well.

It is not the first time the rail service has been offered for students and then discontinued, prompting Phillips to ask about the reason for the back-and-forth.

“I’m a little bit confused as to why we keep going back to the train system for schools, seeing that it requires heavy subsidy. We stop it, then we go back, and we stop, and then we go back,” he observed.

“I can say categorically, based on the Cabinet [decision], that we will not be going back [this time] until we have a more efficient, sustainable model. The model that is there is just unworkable,” Vaz said.

Meanwhile, Phillips asked whether the proposed rail system for western Jamaica to be developed with private interests and with a tourism slant has been shelved.

Noting that it has not been shelved, Vaz disclosed that based on the proposed concept, advice was sought from the Attorney General’s Department. He explained that the partnership would necessitate some legislative amendments “which are not the easiest thing to do”.

“The various different models that have been proposed between the private sector investor and the government, the only way to facilitate it and for it to be properly structured, and for the Government of Jamaica to be protected, are legislative amendments that are in train,” Vaz shared.

He said it was “a very positive development for western Jamaica”.