06 October 2025

Amid continuing uncertainty about whether Russia will invest in modernising and upgrading the Cuban railways system, Cuba’s state media has detailed the steps the Unión de Ferrocarriles de Cuba (UFC) is taking to try to improve its aging infrastructure.

In an extended analysis, the official media platform Cubadebate has outlined the strategic importance of Cuba’s 8,000km complex nationwide rail network, its challenges, status, and immediate plans and prospects. The publication did so on the basis that that the UFC’s fortunes directly impact on social, economic, and politically sensitive areas including sugar production, fuel transportation, food distribution, and public mobility.

Speaking to Argenis Jiménez, the Deputy Director of the Cuban Railways Union, the media platform described a system being held together by committed railwaymen utilising the limited sums at their disposal to invest in, maintain, and upgrade the country’s deteriorating railway infrastructure and services.

“The national railway system, is immersed in a period we could call recovery, based on the identification of the fundamental pillars on which we must work to strengthen the activity,” Jiménez told the publication, before going on to address issues from safety to incentivising the system’s workforce.

Safety concerns being addressed as a priority

Asked about the recent increase in accidents, Jiménez said that these largely resulted “from objective factors, such as the limited availability of resources essential for the repair and maintenance of the railway, and subjective factors, including “negligence or a lack of foresight in railway operations by the personnel involved.” To address this, he said, actions have been taken “to minimise and, if possible, eradicate the causes and conditions that generate these train accidents.”

Following recent tours of the entire national rail network to identify the most vulnerable points requiring urgent intervention, he noted, specific resources had been allocated, and training provided for crews and personnel involved in rail traffic. “The goal is to strengthen safety and ensure that trains complete their routes on schedule,” he told the online publication. To this end, he noted, “Immediate work is already underway in those locations where, with available resources or a minimum of them, traffic parameters can be restored….”

Stressing that safety remained a top priority, Jiménez, confirmed that “It’s often necessary to reduce speed to ensure safety” in the light of “current limitations which include both material and human resources.”

Power outages impacting on operations

One critical factor the interview highlighted is the lack of electricity at stations and its impact on railway communications and safety.

“This is a factor that is causing major delays today, because when a power outage occurs or there is a power shortage, all communication with those stations is lost,” the UFC’s Deputy Director said. “If there is no communication, if there is no clear order of movement, the train cannot move forward. It must wait until communication is restored or operate at minimum speed to avoid any incident that could lead to an accident.”

Jiménez also noted the impact a lack of spare parts is having on the recovery of rolling stock, whether locomotives and railcars, or passenger cars and freight cars. Many, he said, must be imported, despite efforts being made by domestic industry to supply some of what is required.

Pointing out that passenger cars have not received spare parts since their acquisition in 2019, the Deputy Director of the Cuban Railways Union said, “We have managed to keep them running thanks to the inventiveness of railway workers and certain links with national industry, which have allowed us to extend their useful life.”

Noting that “due to the country’s financial limitations, this has been very difficult,” he told Cubadebate that “strategies have been sought to import resources that directly impact the safety of rail traffic.” “Contracts have already been finalised abroad, and we hope that, by the end of this year, parts will be acquired to repair locomotives and passenger cars, especially those acquired in 2019,” he said.

Cubadebate wrote, however, that such purchases will primarily be directed at acquiring parts for the high-powered locomotives that pull the country’s domestic passenger services and its strategically important main line freight trains. In this latter context, Jiménez, observed that some progress has been achieved in relation to the containers used to transport protected loads including the country’s subsidised basic food basket. A level of resources has been guaranteed, he said, that has allowed for the repair of 140 containers in a process that will continue throughout 2025.

Despite this, he said, other actions are being delayed to the medium and long term, due to their technical and logistical complexity and the need for imported resources. These include the provision of treated wooden sleepers not available nationally due “to the lack of forest resources,” and spare parts for specialised machinery used for railway maintenance: “The goal is to progressively improve the running quality of the trains until they reach the speed for which each section of the track was designed,” Jiménez said,

Uncertainty surrounds Russian investment in Cuba’s Railways

Although discussions have been taking place since 2017 with Russia about investment in the transformation of the sector, and France’s SNCF has been maintaining with the support of the French Development Agency (AFD) some of the country’s locomotives, no mention of the current state of either relationship was made by Cubadebate.

In September 2024 the Russian Railways Union confirmed that it planned soon to sign a contract for the modernisation of Cuba’s railway infrastructure, noting that the company had resumed work on the project after the Russian Government published in March 2024 a cooperation agreement with Cuba which included provisions for credits for the modernisation of the island’s railway system (Cuba Briefing 23 September 2024).

Then in July this year Russia’s Ministry of Transport said that it is seeking alternative sources of finance to upgrade the Cuban railways system. Following a meeting in Moscow between the Russian Deputy Minister of Transport, Alexander Poshivay, and Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Transport, Marcus Bermudez de la Torre, it was announced that a search had begun to identify new sources of funding to resume work intended to restore and modernise the Cuban railways system. No indication was provided as to why a new source of funding was required.

More promisingly, however, during his recent visit to Moscow, President Díaz-Canel received confirmation from President Putin that a special mechanism to subsidise interest rates on credits for Russian business owners investing in major projects in Cuba will now be established. The confirmation came not long after a meeting in Havana of the Russia-Cuba Intergovernmental Commission, and earlier indications that Cuba is willing to offer special incentives and concessions to leading Russian investors in strategic sectors including railways.

What is less clear is whether the project as initially envisaged will proceed as the cost is huge. In 2019 it was estimated to be between €1.88bn (US$2.21bn) and €2bn but is likely to have risen substantially since then. The overall scope of the project was first detailed in Cuba Briefing 3 March 2017.

“Today, the Cuban railway network faces the dual challenge of modernisation and resilience. Heir to an infrastructure that demands a constant battle for sustainability, it stands as an irreplaceable pillar for the country. In a complex economic context, the train remains the backbone for the movement of large volumes of cargo, as well as a fundamental mass transportation service for thousands of citizens,” Cubadebate concluded. However, when or if the external financial and technical support needed to turn around Cuba’s vital but deteriorating railway system will appear, continues to remain unclear.

Highlights in this issue:

• Cuba begins to implement regulations for a carbon market
• New oversight policy requires non-state MSMEs to take state legal advice when contracting
• Cuba blames Washington for exclusion by DR from the Summit of the Americas
• New Russian military agreement with Cuba submitted to State Duma
• China ‘willing to expedite emergency-based aid projects’

06 October 2025, Issue 1296

The Caribbean Council is able to provide further detail about all the stories in Cuba Briefing. If you would like a more detailed insight into any of the content of today’s issue, please get in touch