FC del Norte de Cuba 4-6-0 Locomotives in Cuba

Class 20 (Locobase 14425)

Data from DeGolyer, Volume 54, pp.137. Works number was 43577 in June 1916.

When the Williamsport & North Branch found it couldn't take delivery of the mixed-traffic Ten-wheeler it had ordered, Baldwin quickly identified a buyer in the new Cuban railroad that served sugar mills and a growing demand for passenger service. It was not the easiest service--maximum grades ran 102 feet to the mile (1.9%) and the road had maximum curves of 19 degrees on the line. At the time of the order, the Norte deployed 45 miles (72.5 km) of line of which 25 miles was laid with 70 lb/yard (35 kg/metre) rail and 20 miles used 56 lb/28 kg/metre) rail. A note in the specs states that the Norte "will assume responsibility for this locomotive operating over 56 lbs. rails and their bridges."

The 20 was changed to oil-firing in 1919. At some later date, the Norte sold the 20 to the Cuban Hershey Railway as their 12.

All of the other Baldwin Ten-wheelers for the Norte would be delivered with superheaters.

Class 21 (Locobase 14426)

Data from DeGolyer, Volume 54, pp.139 and Volume 64, pp. 137 and 378. See also Oscar Zanetti Lecuona, Alejandro Garcfa Alvarez, Sugar & railroads: a Cuban history, 1837-1959 (U of North Carolina Press, 1998 (translation)), pp. 267. Works numbers were 44799-44802 in January 1917, 50733-50735 in November 1918, 50784-50785 in December.

According to Zanetti and Garcia, the Norte (incorporated in Delaware in 1916 as the Cuban Northern) was a clean-sheet railway, built to serve new sugar processors with much higher capacities. Originally formed to build a line between the north-coast ports of Caibarien and Nuevitas, the Norte totalled 311 km (193 miles) by 1921 that consisted of these principal segments:

Moron to Nuevitas, Cuba, 168.12 km (104 miles - the main line

Jucaro to San Fernando, Cuba, 67.142 km (41.7 miles)-southern-coast port to the main line

Esmeralda to Florida. Cuba, 27.945 km (17.2 miles) - north-south branch

Moron to Falla, Cuba, 19.728 km (12.25 miles)

Velasco to Cunagua, Cuba, 19.001 km (11.8 miles)

Carolina to Jagueval, Cuba. 9.00 km (5.6 miles)

Rolling stock included forty-three locomotives, twenty-eight passenger cars and hundreds of freight cars. Some of the road bed was laid on "sandy and muddy foundation", according to

These superheated Ten-wheelers were based on the single engine that arrived a year earlier (Locobase 14425). In addition to the reconfigured boiler, changes included a 6" (152 mm) reduction in driver diameter. They could burn either wood or coal using a convertible grate, but the class was quickly converted to oil-firing in 1919. Steam was admitted to the cylinders through 9 1/2" (241 mm) piston valves.

29 was later sold to Central Stewart and still later operated on the Central Venezuela sugar roads.