Vacoas - Old Post Office and Ex-Railway Station - 1968

Vacoas – The Old Post Office & Train Station – 1968

Among all the towns in Mauritius, Vacoas was the last to bear the township title. Strange indeed, Vacoas is known to be the least developed town and is somewhat also very slow in moving forward. Those who reside in this region can confirm that progress is very slow. But on the other side what appraises the town is because of its cool climate. Located between Curepipe and Quatre Bornes, the climate is believed to be among the best, neither too hot nor too cold. When we take a look back in history, it is hard to believe that Vacoas existed before Curepipe, and even in terms of development, Curepipe was the last area among the towns where people started to live in, but Curepipe is far more developed than Vacoas. Due to epidemics on the lower areas in the early 19th century, people began to move to cooler area and hence migrated from the coastal and lower altitude areas to the central plateaus.

The railways in Mauritius was created in 1862 and included 6 lines (2 main, 4 secondary), the first one being the North line ranging from Port Louis to Grand River South East (GRSE), inaugurated on the 23rd of May 1864. Then came the Midland line which started from Port Louis and ended at Mahebourg. This line went through all the towns from Port Louis, Beau Bassin, Rose Hill, Quatre Bornes, Phoenix, Vacoas and Curepipe. The other stops in between these towns were areas outside or within these towns.

All the train stations also acted as Post Offices. When all the routes and railways activity was stopped in 1964, most of the stations continued to operate as Post Offices. The Vacoas Post Office (ex-Train Station) continued to operate in the same building till mid 1980s, after which the building was unfortunately pulled down and replaced by the actual bus station. The comparison below shows the old post office building (image of 1974) and the new bus stand (image of 2013).