http://schedule.wttw.com/episodes/37901 ... Railroads/

I was channel scanning when I hit on this mid-program, so I watched it, I don't know if this was covered here before, but Ian Wright bounced into Cuba and rattled around their railroad systems. The program originally aired last year but it seems to keep making its runarounds, check your listings. Maybe it online somewhere.

Because of the political situation it has caused Cuba to get very frugal with existing operational equipment. The show is definately worth the watch.

It was my understanding from some retired Alco engineers that the Model 251 engine design was used in diesels they sold to Cuba in 1954, two years before Alco introduced the DL701 (RS-11) locomotive in the U.S. However, 251's installed in the diesels going to Cuba were six-cylinder rather than 12-cylinder ones found in the DL701.

Using the 6-251's in the Cuban diesels gave Alco some practical experience with the 251 design before they made the great leap of offering it to American railroads as a 12-351. Inadequate testing of the predecessor diesel engine (the Model 244) before using it to power Alco Post-War locomotives was regarded as being one of the biggest mistakes Alco ever made.

I don't know if any of these 6-251 Alco's survive in Cuba.

As an aside, Alco also retrofitted a couple of Lehigh Valley FA-2 locomotives with 251 engines and operated them on LV freight trains for a few months in 1954 between New Jersey and Sayre, PA to road test the not-yet-released 12-251 engines.

A few weeks ago, Russia announced that they were going to make another wave of major financial investments in the Cuban railroad system. This will include locomotives, passenger and freight cars, and heavy track work. This should take out pretty much the rest of the real old stuff left over from before 1960.

Second-hand equipment from Spain and Mexico and a few other countries has been arriving for several decades. Much of the equipment from Mexico actually started in the U.S. It replaced items that could no longer be repaired or to add capacity. A modernization in the 1980s and 1990s paid for by the Soviet Union did some work and added some new equipment, but only on parts of the system.

The Alcos/MLWs in Cuba were mostly gone a decade ago, but the EMD G8 locos were running strong. However, the Russian copies of Alcos were still seen in a number of places. The Budd cars had mostly been turned into coaches with plastic seats like those found in many cheap airports or bus stations twenty years ago.

Cuba is a real mix of equipment and practices, generally pieced together to provide basic services.

Bart

I realize this is off the original subject of Cuban railroads, but for anyone interested in my comment about Lehigh Valley Alco FA-2's equipped with 12-251 engines, I found more information in my "archives":

The Lehigh Valley FA-2's were Nos. 583 and 594. They were in service with their retrofitted 251 engines for at least a year.

Back to Cuba:

At a time when the U.S. seems to be interested in creating jobs and putting people back to work, it's a shame that we've suddenly (once again) developed an anti-Cuba attitude. Rejuvenation of the Cuban rail system with new equipment and rehabilitated tracked could have employed a significant number of Americans.

It isn't so much that we've " developed an anti-Cuba attitude."

The reality is that as long as Cuba has a Communist Party in charge, Raul Castro or not, any "investment" of funds into Cuba's infrastructure enriches only Communist Party leaders (read: Raul), with absolutely none of it making its way down to the commoners.

Any astute American CEO or CFO is going to avoid Cuba until there is deep systemic change internally.

And they will pay for it using...?