The workshops for the maintenance of the Francisco Vega Sánchez railway, in Luyanó, in Havana, suffered a fire on Thursday night that was put out by firefighters. The images shared by social media users they reflect the great smoke and flames that came out of the building, as well as electrical sparks when the fire had contact with the electrical network.
The Cuban Railway Union confirmed that the accident occurred at 6:00 pm and was caused by an electrical short circuit in the transformer bank of the workshops. The forces of the Fire Department, the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) and also the workshop workers participated in the work to extinguish the fire.
“As a result of the incident, there was no loss of human life or considerable material damage,” the institution said in a brief statement published on its social networks.
“As a result of the incident, there was no loss of human life or considerable material damage,” the institution said in a brief statement.
Fires are not a new issue in Cuba’s ailing railway system and in the last month alone two other accidents have occurred in different locations. The most recent one was registered at 6:00 pm last Sunday in a locomotive that made its way between the municipalities of Santa Cruz del Sur and Camagüey. The independent medium Cuban Time posted a video of passengers leaving the carriage as flames spread through the unit.
A passenger told the newspaper that the train stopped “in the middle of nowhere” and workers immediately began asking people to collect their belongings and leave the carriages. So far, the authorities have not provided details about the causes or the material damage of this incident.
At the end of November, a fire also consumed a train car that was transporting tobacco leaves from Pinar del Río. The Government used the railway system to move part of the harvest, still in the drying process, which was left undamaged after the passage of Hurricane Ian, as the climatic event left the necessary infrastructure for the cultivation and processing of the best cigars in the world in rubble. world.
The railway service is in terrible conditions with breaks in the tracks, bridges and overpasses, as well as the wear and tear of the infrastructure of the locomotives and wagons that makes it easy for a fire to spread.
The latest attempt to reactivate the railway system came to light last October, when the Cuban government announced the signing of an agreement between the Union of Railways and Beijing Fanglian Technology for a Chinese company to resume the “gradual recovery” of the infrastructure. The new chapter of cooperation includes the restoration of the workshops and locomotives that are in the Mariel Special Development Zone, as well as the importation of equipment parts and pieces.
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