Gibara Holgufn 2-8-0 Locomotives in Cuba

Class 7 (Locobase 15251)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Vol 72, pp. 34+. See also Visiones de Historia Cubana's entry on "El Ferrocarril Gibara Holgufn: Una Victoria del Integrismo" at [] (last accessed, 16 June 2013) and "Cuban Railways", Brotherhood of Locomotive Firem3n and Enginemen's Magazine, Volume 31, No 3 (September 1901), pp. 364-384. Works number was 57641 in February 1924.

The blog entry says that the railway between these two Oriente province towns was a product of a successful resistance to the revolution that swept across Cuba in 1873-1883. "Integrismo" is a tricky concept for a non-Spanish speaker to define, and finding examples of the practice in Cuba's east was a relatively rare occurrence. Locobase will define it in this case as a counterrevolution of sugar mill owners and coffee growers that erected a bastion around a "garden-like" enclave surrounded by revolutionary activity.

The porcupine defenses were so effective, says the blog, that the integrismos decided to support their economic activity by building a narrow-gauge railway between the port of Holgufn and the town of Gibara some 30 km (18.6 miles) inland. They induced a British syndicate to support the construction, which included the first tunnel to be bored in Cuba, a bridge across the Cacoyugnfn river, and the filling in of a kilometre of coastline.

The project took a full decade (1883-1893) to complete and stands "as a monument to the power of the gibare'o integrismo" (Locobase's translation).

Decades later the GH bought this plantation Consolidation. If its number reflects its true position in the railway's motive power chronology, the GH never grew very large.