Cuba Central- to the Heart of Cuba (Trains & Sugar) Mar 1- Mar 8, 2024

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The word “central” has many meanings in Cuba. Yes, it means the middle or center, and we will 

explore the central part of Cuba, but it also means much more. Central is also the word for the regional sugar mill and signifies the heart of the community and the industry from which it grew. “El Ferrocaril Central” means the Central Railway or the National Railway, and at one point in history, Cuba boasted more trackage per square mile than any other country. 

While “La Caña” (sugar cane) in Cuba is a shadow of its former self, it still holds a special place in the history and culture of the country. In the mid-1950s, Julio Lobo, a Cuban businessman, a.k.a. The Sugar King of Havana, controlled the world's sugar market from Cuba. A strong argument could be made that none of Cuba’s revolutions would have succeeded without the sugar industry. Enslaved people and their children provided the workforce that formed armies to overthrow Spain and Batista. The insatiable demand for sugar begat the plantations, which begat the need for enslaved people, which begat more ports, which begat the railroad, which begat larger harvests, which begat even more ports, which begat the consolidation of the railroads and a massive infrastructure of railways from the fields to the “Central” and subsequently the ports. In a short time, “Sugar” became more valuable than the dwindling gold convoys destined for Spain and remained so into the 1990s.

Our journey begins and ends in Camagüey, an old colonial city formally named Puerto Principe, designed to defend itself from pirates with a confusing conundrum of narrow streets. It is the third largest city in Cuba and an essential stop on Cuba’s main railway line because of its central location. This municipality is a beautiful walking destination with numerous plazas, old churches, and narrow, winding streets. Old colonial homes that open into courtyards often boast multiple “tinajones, " gigantic earthenware pots to collect and store rainwater. It is noticeably more relaxed than Havana or Santiago, with an air of sophistication regardless of its rural surroundings. It is an economic and cultural center that boasts one of Cuba’s three world-renowned ballets and an international airport. To the north are the Cayos of Santa Maria and some of Cubas's finest beach resorts. The land of the province is flat and excellent for grazing and sugarcane. 

Camagüey has one of the four major railroad stations in Cuba. It serves as a hub for central Cuba and boasts the most extensive repair and maintenance railroad yard in Cuba. The original station hosts a Railway Museum where visitors can experience the pinnacle of the Central Railway and the floors above the museum house the railroad archives. The railway yard, Talleres de Garrido, is not far away, where a turntable serves a massive roundhouse with 25 + bays. We will take a local train from Camagüey to Nuevitas on a line initially established in 1837. This is a “Local” train instead of a “National” train, and it stops at crossings and small stations where passengers jump on and off. They are commuters, construction workers, farmers, students, and pensioners who use the train to go to work, school, the hospital in the city, or just the next town. The total fare is CUP 125 or 65¢ for a 100 + kilometer trip that takes 4 hours. The seats are wooden, the windows are open, and the cars jump and jolt over the uneven tracks. Vendors and passengers hop on and off at stops to buy and sell milk, poultry, eggs, aguardiente, bread, fruit, sweets, and“cremitas de leche.” The baggage car is filled with pets, livestock, building supplies, equipment parts and fluids, and more. Our portion of the trip will end at a small classic station in the small town of Lugareño after a three-hour ride.

After three days, we will leave Camagüey and travel westward by train to Moron. Once a part of the province of Camaüey but now in Ciego de Avila, Moron is historic and located at a critical junction of the trains that connects the north to the south through Ciego de Avila or Camagüey. The small city enjoys some prosperity from business and jobs generated by resorts on the keys to the north. These cater to the Canadian market, which flies direct flights to Aeropuerto de Jardines del Rey on the islands. With a large station resembling the station in Havana in scale, design, and age (1923), Moron serves as a window in time back to the mid-1920s and a time when the sugar industry build the “Centrals” and railways for Cuba’s sugar industry. Now a museum, the Patria Central was built and thrived during the same era. Closed in 2000, one-time workers but still residents in the small mill town of Patria will guide us through the processes they performed during the great Zafra, the largest harvest during the 1970s when Cuba tried to meet the ten million ton quota for the contract with the Soviet Union. Leaving Patria by steam locomotive, we will travel a short distance through cane fields, where we will see the harvesting in the fields. Although the flat terrain in this region is perfect for cutting machines and harvesters, the rare brigade of “macheteros” (hand cutters with machetes) can still be found. This short ride will end at a whistle-stop siding for a country lunch. Other side trips from Moron might be taken in a motorized railway car. At the end of two nights in Moron, we will return to Camagüey, where we will wrap up our trip with less industrial subject matter and a chance to share what we have captured.