INDUSTRIAL RAILWAYS AND IMPERIALISM
Through the Crown Agents for the Colonies, as well as through agents and directly, Robert Hudson sold its products to the world. Some of the many countries that may still bear evidence of the activities of Hudson customers are listed below (country names as they appear in records):
International sales of Hudson products
Taken from a very quick scan through the Hudson archive at Leeds Industrial Museum, this list is almost certainly incomplete. Hudson sold to a number of companies that would have further distributed the products.
- Aden
- See below
- Angola
- Bahrain
- No railways have been recorded from Bahrain.
- Bermuda
- The short-lived railway in Bermuda was reputed to be the most expensive ever constructed.
- Borneo
- Brazil
- British West Somaliland
- No railways have been recorded from British West Somaliland.
- Ceylon
- Cyprus
- Dominica
- Chile
- See Grace's Guide
- E.A.R.& H.
- East African Railways and Harbours Corporation
- Falkland Islands
- See below.
- Fiji
- Gambia
- Ghana
- Gibraltar
- Gold Coast
- Guyana
- Hong Kong
- India
- Iraq
- Jamaica
- Java
- Kenya
- Kenya-Uganda Railway
- Malaya
- Malaysia
- Malta
- The only recorded railway in Malta closed in 1931, so why did Hudson respond to an order in 1957?
- Mauritius
- Mesopotamia
- Nepal
- Nepal Government and Forest Railways 1927.
- Nigeria
- Incl. Kano Power Station
- Palestine
- Exports to Palestine ended abruptly, with cancelled orders, when civil war broke out in 1947.
- Philippines
- Portugal
- Probably included material for Portuguese colonies.
- Portuguese West Africa
- Included complete equipping of 100km-long Amboim Railway and 630km Luanda Railway.
- Rhodesia
- Sierra Leone
- St Kitts
- Sugar
- Straits Settlements (Penang)
- Tanganyika
- Trinidad
- UNKRA
- United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency
- Uganda
- Zanzibar
Some (many?) of these orders may have been for construction sites, as the countries to which the equipment was sent reportedly never had railways (e.g. Bahrain). Others are mysteries – why Malta in 1957, when that country’s only public railway closed in 1930? In the main, the railway equipment was for industrial uses, on sugar, palm oil and sisal plantations, in gold and diamond mines and in coal mines. They underline the ephemeral nature of most industrial railways and a general lack of interest in them compared with their standard gauge relatives. Much Hudson material probably remains abandoned around the world
Last updated 9th November 2019
