Cuba purchases Chinese diesel locomotives

Of course we cant sell them any shiny new loco's because of the outdated trade embargo, sheesh!!!! If they've got money for Chinese locos it should be obvious to anyone that the embargo has nothing left to it, just a political punishment against Castro's regime. Build one Walmart in the middle of Havana and the 'revolution' would be over...as it is we'll have to wait a couple more years till Castro kicks off before the antiquated mindsets in both Cuba and DC finally come to their senses and resume trade and tourism.

I fail to see how our governemnt can go on and on condemning Cuba for being 'Commies' and for a lousy human rights record while at the same time bowing over backwards to do business with that other 'Commie' nation with a lousy human rights record, anyone here even remember Tienamin Square??? Bunch of hypocrites if you ask me.

Guess it just goes to show that our government would trade with the Devil if there was enough money involved..

PS I wonder just how long the embargo would have lasted if Cuba was full of Oil instead of Sugercane ????

What??? I thought it was us Canadians that supplied trains and buses(and cows) to Cuba in exchange for cigars and brown sugar. Where's this China place???

QUOTE: Originally posted by vsmith I fail to see how our governemnt can go on and on condemning Cuba for being 'Commies' and for a lousy human rights record while at the same time bowing over backwards to do business with that other 'Commie' nation with a lousy human rights record, anyone here even remember Tienamin Square??? Bunch of hypocrites if you ask me. Guess it just goes to show that our government would trade with the Devil if there was enough money involved.. PS I wonder just how long the embargo would have lasted if Cuba was full of Oil instead of Sugercane ????

Vic,
Yeah, kinda ironic that we take our terrorist prisoners to Cuba and deny them their rights as granted by the Geneva Conventionand then condemn Cuba about their lousy human rights record.

Back to the topic of Cuba's railroads, does anyone know how much trackage they have and besides the new diesels what kind of locos they operate?

I guess the days of Cuban steam are coming to a close

As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Vic on this one. The embargo is pointless.

I think steam only survives on a few sugar plant railroads, many of them narrow gauge. Right now they're offering quite a lot of locos for sales in a variety of gauges both narrow and standard ie 4' 8.5"

They have quite a motley collection of diesel locos and stock including a few British built ones. In the 1960's they bought some diesels from the British builder Brush which were almost identical the 2,700hp Sulzer locos Brush built for British Rail (Class 47). But I think the Cuban ones have been scrapped now.

Locos and rolling stock in Cuba is a melting pot....
-steam locos, infortunately quickly vanishing, are mainly narrow and standard gauge Baldwin and Lima Moguls and Consolidations, which are (were) working in sugar mills and assorted networks...Some of these remain now as tourist railroads, such as José Smith Comas not far from Varadero. But as this country is communist, bureaucraty is terrifying and it appears more difficult to board one of these trains than for myself to obtain a free flight aboard the Space Shuttle......
-diesel: a lot of canadian (MLW), russian, and also some GE C30-7s imported from Mexico, and with smaller fuel tanks in order to save weight and accomodate Cuba's lighter rail system...
-freight cars: as far as I have seen on an afternoon spent railfanning besides a yard close to Havana main station, it looks like Eastern Europe / Russia prototype .
-passenger cars: various origin (Canada I believe), with a few ex-French National Railroad comfort cars (Budd like ondulated steel). I've also seen some on the same location, but I've not been able to see if the original european style couplers (screw couplers with buffers) have been changed to knuckle couplers.....

Dominique