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Victorias Milling Company |
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The Victorias Milling Company was historically the largest sugar milling business on Negros operating over its unique (in Negros) 2ft (610mm) gauge system - some sources quote 600mm gauge. Formed by amalgamation with the adjacent North Negros Milling Company based on Manapla, where some facilities remain, its field area was sufficiently large and diverse to allow processing to operate year around. Unfortunately, its management suffered from all the traditional weaknesses of the Philippino system. With the market collapsing around them, the employees woke up one morning in the 1990s to discover that key figures had vanished overnight taking along with them the entire liquid assets and the company was technically bankrupt. By the time I visited in 1998, the mill was operating but well below capacity owing to farmers' natural reluctance to send cane to a company which might be unable to pay them. By then, large amounts of the rail system had been abandoned and even ripped up and the rumours that some/many of the remaining steam locomotives would re-enter service could safely be discounted, in fact less than half the large diesel fleet was at work. |
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