Uncommon View In Sri Lankan Railway Roads Stock Photo

Rail was introduced in Sri Lanka in 1864 to transport coffee from plantations in the hill country district of Kandy to the port city of Colombo on its way to Europe and the world market. The coffee blight of 1871 destroyed many a fine plantation and tea replaced coffee. With the development of tea plantations in the 1880s the joint stock companies swallowed up the former individual proprietorship of the coffee era. Under corporate ownership and management control by companies the process of production of tea became more sophisticated and needed more and more railways built to the Kandyan highlands. To send tea to Colombo and to transport labour machinery manure rice and foodstuff etc to Kandy another 100 miles of railways were constructed in the tea planting districts to serve the expanding tea domain