Friday Night Steam

All aboard!     We're off to..........Cuba!

By the start of the 1950s, Cuban railroads had entered into crisis. On one hand, stagnation in the sugar industry combined with stiff competition from trucks and buses to provoke a sharp decline in revenue. On the other, a combative labor movement in alliance with a populist state had won significant wage increases that sharply increased labor costs. The railroads needed state intervention to survive, and they got it. Ferrocarriles Unidos, in the west, was nationalized as a joint venture in 1949, while Ferrocarriles Consolidados, the U.S.-dominated eastern monopoly, received heavy state subsidies throughout the 1950s. Both firms sought to cut costs by reducing wages and service, as they invested in new equipment in a vain effort to improve service quality. Wage cuts, however, led to an increasing combativeness among railway workers, who in large numbers actively supported the 26th of July Movement’s efforts to overthrow Batista. About a year after the revolutionary takeover in late 1958, the railways were fully nationalized.

Cuba’s 2,900-mile standard-gauge railway system has deteriorated since aid from the former Soviet Union dried up, the country depends on it for basic transportation. The government believes that rail service is environmentally desirable and necessary to the country’s economic objectives. Cuba’s highways are in poor condition, few people own cars, and gasoline is scarce. So despite its dilapidated condition, Ferrocarriles de Cuba (FdeC) commands a strong market share, hauling 65-70% of Cuba’s freight and providing transportation for 55-60% of intercity and regional travelers.
Annually, FdeC hauls about 4.4 million tons of freight and carries 11 million passengers, and produces 500 million freight ton-miles and 900 million passenger-miles. Freight train-miles are 3.9 million, passenger train-miles 1.1 million. This is accomplished with a fleet of approximately 350 locomotives, 8,000 freight cars, and 750 passenger cars. About 50% are out of service at any given time due to a lack of repair parts. U.S. repair parts are not available, and parts from other countries are expensive due to high import tariffs and shipping costs. Diesel fuel is in short supply, as prices are high since petroleum products must be imported from South America or the Middle East.
FdeC freight trains average 16-18 cars (about 900 metric tons) and use one locomotive. The maximum permissible axle load on most of the network is 23 metric tons. Longer, heavier trains would be possible were there not an equipment shortage, as the infrastructure is capable of supporting them. Principal commodities are sugar cane and sugar cane byproducts, tobacco, aggregates, petroleum products, and agricultural products.

FdeC employs 27,000 people who are paid, on average, about 500 Cuban pesos per month. At 22 pesos per U.S. dollar, that translates to an annual payroll of about $7 million. Average train crew size is four-engineer, assistant engineer, conductor, assistant conductor. Cabooses are still used, and on long distance freights, crews generally stay with the train, living aboard dormitory cars for up to a week.

FdeC operations do not include Cuba’s sugar cane railroads, which number approximately 100 and are operated independently with their own rolling stock. These railroads account for an additional 4,800 miles of track (about 35% of which is narrow-gauge), 900 locomotives (almost 400 of them steam), and around 30,000 casillas, or stake cars.

FdeC still is, for all intents and purposes, an AAR-standard railroad as it was before the revolution, even though much of its equipment comes from former Soviet-bloc countries. Many of the railroad’s diesel locomotives are Soviet-built copies of U.S. Alco units transferred to the USSR after World War II during the Marshall Plan. Sprinkled in this eclectic mix are units from Canada’s Bombardier-Montreal Locomotive Works, Hungary, Romania, and Czechoslovakia (1976-vintage MLW units among the newest), as well as a handful of U.S.-built, 1950s-vintage General Electric switchers and EMD road units. Soviet-built, 2,600-hp TE114Ks, acquired in the early 1980s, are the most powerful in the fleet; 1920s-era GE electrics are the oldest. Locomotive availability of the operable fleet averages 65%. The most reliable locomotives are the old EMD units, availability of which is 80-82%. The newer Soviet units are the least reliable.

Freight cars for the most part are based on old U.S. designs, and there are some U.S. cars left in the fleet. Wheels, trucks, and couplers are Eastern European- or Japanese-made copies of obsolete designs from such U.S. suppliers as ASF and NACO. FdeC’s roster includes stake cars, gondolas (bottom- and side-dump), livestock cars, tank cars, flat cars, and container flats. Principal car and locomotive shops are at Havana (Revolucion de Octubre and Cienaga facilities), Matanzas, Santa Clara (Taller Ciro Redondo shop), Camaguey, Moron, Sagua, and Santiago de Cuba.
Most of FdeC’s main lines are laid with 112-pound, Soviet-supplied bolted rail, Cuban-made prestressed concrete ties, and screw-bolt fasteners. Track products are scarce, as is maintenance-of-way equipment. The only m/w machines are a handful of tampers; most other maintenance (tie and rail replacement, ballast cleaning) is done manually. In the early 1990s, FdeC undertook reconstruction of its Havana-Santiago de Cuba main trunk, but this project didn’t get very far due to Cuba’s economic downturn. Some of the new construction has been cannibalized to repair other parts of the network. For example, there is a relatively new bypass around Santa Clara laid with welded rail and concrete ties. It’s out of service because its materials are needed elsewhere.
FdeC operates mostly with paper-based train orders and manual block/tower control, though radio-based dispatching is used on the Havana-Santiago route. The newest technology is employed on the Havana-Santa Clara line, which is equipped with a semi-automatic block system and relay interlockings.

Passenger rail service is unreliable, though affordable for Cubans (the 12-hour Havana-Santiago run, operated with ex-VIA Rail Budd RDCs, costs 30 Cuban pesos). Intercity trains are generally crowded and reserved far in advance. Rail buses, some of them manufactured domestically, are in widespread use throughout the country on branch lines. FdeC also operates 90 miles of 1,200 v.d.c. electrified interurban passenger lines–the famous Hershey Electric.

Tourist trains are under consideration, as well. In partnership with the Cuban government, Brussels-based Transnico International Group has planned to run the Cuba & Caribe Express, a six-day Havana-Santiago tour with accommodations for 136 passengers on 21 refurbished railcars.
Offshore interest in Cuba’s rail system is just beginning to stir. A Mexican company has expressed interest in investing and/or privatization. Under the current structure, outside investors must partner with the government and are allowed a maximum 49% interest.
Cuba, interestingly, is one of only three countries in the world with a school for signal engineers (the others are Russia and Hungary).

The interest in Cuban Steam stems from its diversity – All the major American Builders: Baldwin, Porter, Vulcan Iron Works, Davenport, Alco (and their constituent companies Cooke, Rogers).
European Builders: Henschel, Borsig, Orenstein and Koppel, Thiriau
Moguls, Prairies, Ten Wheelers, Consolidations, Mikados
A wide variety of smaller tank engines including firelesses
All locomotives at least 60 years old and several centenarians