Central Santa Teresa / Central Santa Tomas 2-8-0 Locomotives in Cuba

Class 1 (Locobase 11718)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines, 1890, as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Vol 16, p. 180. Works number was 11479 in December 1890.

DeGolyer and Gene Connelly both attribute this little Consolidation to Tomas de Ona, but the specifications show it was lettered for the CST.

Class 101 (Locobase 14878)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Vol 64, p. 181. Works number was 57404 in October 1923.

Baldwin's two sizes of plantation Consolidation were selling well to many different Cuban centrals in the first few years after World War One ended in armistice in November 1918. The 101 was a member of the larger-size club and thus had plenty of siblings operating throughout the island. Its immediate predecessor on the production line also went to the Santo Tomas, but it was of the smaller design (Locobase 14877). A single customer buying one of each standard design was a relatively much rarer occurence.

The 101 would later be sold to the Central Moron, which came under national ownership after the 1959 Revolucion and was renamed after Ciro Redondo. The 101 was then renumbered 1833.

Class 4 (Locobase 14876)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Vol 64, p. 175. Works number was in 1920.

This 60-ton standard-gauge oil-burning plantation Consolidation joined many other similar Baldwin products in the island-wide sugar-processing network. The Santa Teresa was located in the more mountainous part of Santa Clara Province at Sagua la Grande. Its railway featured one 2% grade that ran for a kilometre (0.62 miles) and another twice as long that rose at 1 3/4%. The 56 lb/yard (28 kg/metre) rail at time bent around 20 degree curves.

At the time this engine was ordered the Santa Teresa was one of the biggest Centrals in Santa Clara and produced 25,000 tons per year. Even such large mills were not immune to economic downturns. A year later (reported "Cuban Sugar Conditions", Sugar (September 1921), p. 484), the CST had to pass its common-stock dividend because it still had "great stocks" of unsold sugar. Jamaican and Haitian laborers imported under the 1917 law liberalizing such activity were sent home by order of Cuba's president. They had been "wandering unemployed".

Santa Clara would be renamed Las Villas Province in 1940 and in the 1960s, after the 1959 Revolucion and nationalization, the mill would be renamed for Hector Rodriquez.

Class 4 (Locobase 14877)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Vol 64, p. 179. Works numbers were 54224 in December 1920 and 57405 in October 1923.

Central Santo Tomas was located near Ciego de Avila in Camaguey Province. Owned by Cuban Francisco Bravo, the mill was erected in 1916. Production was modest at first, but later expanded rapidly.

These oil-burning plantation Consolidations duplicated a widely used Baldwin design. It was the smaller of the two standard -gauge 2-8-0s. When the 105 entered production in 1923, the next locomotive in line was the 101, which was being built to the larger of the two designs (see Locobase 14878).