Havana-Santiago de Cuba train service with Chinese carriages
The train route Havana-Santiago de Cuba, started on Saturday afternoon with 13 of the 80 carriages purchased from China. They have been favourably received by all the cities, towns and villages that transited, even at night and in the early hours of this Sunday.
Actually, the first expressions of joy and satisfaction came from many of the passengers on board, who enjoyed the comfort and convenience of these carriages and the good service from the train stations and officials of the Cuban Railway Union (UFC), despite the fact that arrival at the final destination was delayed due to technical and operational problems.
What is certain is that many are the expectations that for the benefit of the Cuban railroad -and therefore of the population- are initiated in the future with the opening of the national trips from Havana to cities like Santiago de Cuba, Holguín (this Sunday); Guantánamo (Monday) and Bayamo-Manzanillo (Tuesday).
According to Luis Roberto Rosés Hernández, director of the Unidad Empresarial de Base de Trenes de Pasajeros de la UFC, the impact of the millionaire investment of the Cuban State to reactivate this branch is that the amount of services and people to be transported will double.
The capacity of the previous trains was about 450 passengers in a formation of six cars, and now on each trip there will be 776 passengers in 12 of those modern Chinese carriages, in addition to reducing the frequency of departures to the destinations mentioned: to Santiago de Cuba every other day, the rest of the cities every three.
In the case of Holguín, the reopening of trips from the capital and vice versa is a transcendental fact because since 2005 there were no carriages availability, explained Rosés Hernández to ACN.
The official mentioned as other novelties the possibility for the population to purchase tickets 30 days in advance when previously they could only book five days in advance, and the implementation of an application on mobile phones known as APK, which allows to know the train itineraries, their route in real time and the estimated time of arrival at their destinations.
Now we have as fundamental challenge the care of these carriages and each time to offer a service of better quality. To do so, all the crews -ferromozas, machinists and technicians- were rigorously trained, he emphasized.
The revival of national train services has been preceded by intense work in the commercial, operational and technical areas of the Cuban Railway Union, and as it is also expected to gradually reach other areas of the country once the condition of the carriages in use so far is improved, a stage of inflection is imposed, of awareness in each railway worker to be up to the State’s sleepless nights, he finally said.
(Taken from ACN in Spanish)
Written by Radio Grito de Baire
