The Russian company Sinara Transport Machines Holding has sent seven more TGM-8KM locomotives to Cuba. The train engines are a part of a 2016 deal between Havana and Moscow.
These seven new locomotives arrived in Cuba last Tuesday. The rail vehicles, at the cost of one million euros each, are being sent to Artemisa, Camagüey, Granma, Havana, Sancti Spiritus, and Villa Clara.
These are not the first Russian locomotives to arrive on Cuba’s shores. Eight diesel locomotives manufactured by Lyudinovo Diesel Locomotive Plant (part of Sinara) arrived in Cuba on the threshold of Havana’s 500th Anniversary celebrations.
Jose Cabrera, Sinara’s deputy representative in Cuba, said that 13 more locomotives of this type will arrive next year, and four more will be received in 2022.
In total, 75 locomotives will be sent to Cuba as a part of the original agreement.
According to the Cuban Transportation Minister Eduardo Rodriguez, the receipt of these medium-size locomotives will improve railroad transportation to face next year’s challenges.
In a presentation on Cuban television, Rolando Navarro, deputy director-general of the Union of Railways, said that the new train locomotives will strengthen the transport of cargo, containers, cement, fuel and other products.
Minister Rodriguez described the project as exemplary and a result of agreements resulting from the Cuba-Russia Intergovernmental Commission with Sinara Transport Machines, the Sputnik news agency reported.
He added that Sinara and Cuban Railways company ‘have maintained very good communication and that already 53 other locomotives included in the contract are already running in Cuba and a part of the main railroad traffic.
Rodriguez added that a group of technicians provided by Sinara, are permanently based in Cuba providing technical assistance and maintenance of the locomotives.
Navarro confirmed that bilateral collaboration continues, although ‘the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have forced us to extend the deadlines and to rearrange the projects, but the will and continuity of those remain in force and we will continue working in that direction in 2021.’
The Russian Ambassador to Cuba Andrei Guskov, Trade Representative Alexander Bogatyr and other officials from both nations were present at the reception of the Sinara locomotives.
