Havana/Ferrocarriles de Cuba has launched one of its most demanded routes and, at the same time, one of the most irregular: the Holguin train to Guantanamo. With the brios that only brings on July 26, the company announced this month that the recovery of the route is not only “a temporary measure associated with the summer stage, but is raised as a permanent transport solution.” Of course, whenever there are fuel and technical conditions, the same two problems that kept the convoy stopped for months.
The official press note on the recovery of the line seems an exact copy of what they published a year ago with the same announcement. Then, the train was traveling on alternate days and the authorities assured that the intention was not to disappear the journey again. For November, however, the route was already working only on Saturdays due to lack of fuel and, at the beginning of this year, it was suspended again.
The train was suspended as soon as the harvest began and the wagons were destined to its original purpose: transport cane
A year earlier I had the same problem. After starting working with machinery from the sugar industry, the train was suspended as soon as the harvest began and the wagons were destined for its original purpose: transporting cane.
With that history, it is not uncommon for passengers to distrust the stability of the service, which reappears only when the day of national rebellion is approaching.
Faced with doubts, the authorities have alleged that the train had the locomotive broken, which made it impossible – for the chronic lack of these machines on the island – to resume the service. As explained by Pedro Durruty Martínez, deputy director of Railroads in Guantanamo, recovering the train “demanded repairs and structural modifications to guarantee the safety and reliability of the service, since they are cars that do not carry central, or lateral beams, it is only the structure without the support of the platform,” he said Granma.
The route was set for Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, with five wagons
The medium qualifies the maintenance work, which led to the manufacture from scratch of the necessary pieces by the workers of the Guantanamero Proletarian Vanguardia workshop.
The route was set for Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, with five wagons – four for passengers and one that works as an express – and capacity for between 600 and 700 people. The price, reviews the communist party newspaper, ranges between 135 and 150 pesos “according to the section, a remarkably more affordable alternative than private transport.”
“And from Santa Clara to Morón for when?”
Far from celebrating the news, as the authorities would expect, passengers have launched at the foot of the press articles to criticize the poor state of rail transport. “A large part of the population expects that on this vacation, August, they incorporate the Bayamo-Guantanamo train that they have not put in years ago, and this one of Holguin could alternate them and thus help families that are separated by the high prices of the passages and the low availability of transport,” one requested one in Granma.
“And from Santa Clara to Morón for when? [Lleva] more than six years missing and nobody knows anything, ”reproached another reader in Cubadebate.
Railroads of Cuba has incorporated other routes, although most have been in the Western provinces. In Havana, the Expocuba trainthat the authorities announced with hype and saucer as an option to visit the park during the summer.
The train to the beaches of the east takes more than an hour and a half on a journey of just 25 kilometers
However, on a visit to the fairgrounds – using the line – 14ymedio He found that the train travels practically empty and that, from the passing that rises, few reach the final destination. With three cars of use and a price of 20 pesos, the vehicle was enabled to transport 204 people and makes stops in Luyanó, Dolores, La Víbora, Naranjito, Miraflores, Los Pinos, Alcázar, Arroyo Naranjo, Galapagos, Calabazo and the Pool.
On that date the train start -up was also reported to the Eastern beacheswhich takes more than an hour and a half on a journey of just 25 kilometers.
Before, in June, the Route Los Arabos-Matanzas. The Provincial Directorate of Transportation of Matanzas announced on that occasion that the line will serve Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with departure at 4:40 am and return at 3:30 pm initially, it will have only two cars of 80 passengers each, with the promise to increase to four in the future.
