Cuban Steam part 2 - Cardenas

Once we got the beach-side resort of Varadero I really though my chances of any seeing any more railways were pretty much nil.

So I was pleasantly surprised to open the list of excursions available from our holiday company to discover that there was a trip that included both a visit to the railway at the Jose Smith Sugar Mill and also a visit to the breeding centre for Cuban crocodiles. Well, OK, I wasn't that bothered about the crocodiles to be honest.

On the way to the mill we came across a typical level crossing

I missed the first couple of locos that were plinthed on the approach road because I was on the wrong side of the coach, but pretty soon the sound of a loco in stream met us

After that there seemed to be more locos where ever you looked. I will at some point get around to adding some meaningful captions

After a quick look around the mill itself...

...tt was time to catch the train for the short ride. As far as I can make out this actually appears to include reversing along a line still in use by Cuban railways.  A lot of Cuban poverty was on display along the lineside.

If we hadn't been on an organised tour I could happily have spent another couple of hours here, but we had to head off south. En route I missed a couple more locos at the erstwhile Australia mill, but did manage to snap some shots of a typical Cuban station that shared a name with my wife.

I wouldn't be so obvious as to use "snap" as a pun to lead in a  photo of a crocodile, would I?

"For goodness sake he is still talking about his holiday in Cuba!"

We came back a different route which meant I missed my chance to take photos of the locos I'd not been able to get on the way down, and this turned out to by my last view of a Cuban railway. At least for now.

The full set of Cuban steam photos are here

None railway photos are here and here and finally I took some photographs whilst following in Hemingway's footsteps