It marks a first step of an overhaul Cuba’s communist government started early last year, repairing some 4,200km of ageing tracks and dozens of tumble-down stations scattered around the island.
“It’s a blessing from God because we had to take this trip and private cars are very expensive, but we got a very good low fare and we are proud to be taking this train,” said 69-year-old passenger Virginia Pardo.
But much remains to be done to bring Cuba’s ailing train system up to acceptable standards with miles of rusting tracks and just a handful of reliably equipped trains.
Cuba received a shipment of 80 new Chinese-made train carriages and locomotives in early May, part of a promised consignment of 250 pieces of new equipment by the end of 2019.
Cuba also signed a deal worth almost US$1 billion with Russia to modernise its railways, according to Interfax news agency, although details have not yet been released.
In 2017, state-owned monopoly Russian Railways (RZD) told Reuters it was also negotiating to install a high-speed link between Havana and the beach resort of Varadero.
The government hopes a revamp of the system will restore one of the region’s first countrywide rail services, heavily used to move goods and people around the island. It is part of a plan that runs until 2030, when the government hopes the system will be fully functional.
“Cuba has not received new rail-cars since the 1970s,” Transport Minister Eduardo Rodriguez was quoted as saying by Cubadebate last month.
“We had only received second-hand cars.”
According to the Cuban Transportation Ministry, trains carried 6.7 million passengers in 2018, a sharp drop from almost 11 million passengers in 2004.
The government hopes to increase ridership by 1 million in 2019 on long distance routes.
Train service to the far-eastern cities of Santiago, Holguin, Camaguey and Guantanamo are heavily used by locals.
The Havana-Guantanamo trip costs from 200 Cuban pesos (US$8) round trip, to as little as 20 Cuban pesos between Havana-Matanzas, the first stop on the island-wide circuit.
The low costs are still challenging for many Cubans who only earn on average US$40 a month, but are far cheaper than bus, plane or car travel.
Cuba is the only country in the Caribbean that offers island-wide rail service and once boasted the first countrywide rail line in Latin America, which started service in 1837 with a 27km long line built to transport sugar cane.
Associated Press and Reuters
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Cuban train overhaul gets help from China
