The Cuban National Passenger Train Company currently operates only 16 trains per month, down from the 62 it ran at its peak, representing a 74% decline that its own general director acknowledged while commemorating the seventh anniversary of the entity, according to statements published on social media by the company.
The engineer Jorge Oliva Yero acknowledged the operational downturn in the context of the preparations to celebrate the anniversary of the first trip, which took place on July 19, 2019.
The fuel crisis that has been shaking Cuba since late 2025—exacerbated by the interruption of Venezuelan supplies, the suspension of exports from Pemex, and the secondary sanctions imposed by the Trump administration—has hit the railway system hard.
In its peak activity stage, the company transported between 58,000 and 64,000 passengers per month, with annual figures nearing 900,000 people.
Today, those figures are just a fraction of what they once were, and the impact is felt particularly harshly in rural communities.
"There are places and communities in Jobabo, Santa Lucía, Guáimaro, or Río Cauto; the only means of national passenger transportation that reaches them are the trains," warned Oliva Yero, emphasizing that the railway is the sole means of national transport for those areas.
To survive financially, the company has had to reinvent itself: it uses the machinery in its workshops to produce parts and offers transportation services to the non-state sector.
He also signed a contract with the Centro de Inmunología Molecular to transport raw materials intended for cancer medications to the east and return with vaccines and serums to Havana.
"We are going to transport the raw materials for the production of cancer medications to the eastern region, and once produced, we will bring back the vaccines and serums from the East to Havana," assured Oliva Yero.
Among the most notable announcements is a high-speed train project connecting Havana and Santiago de Cuba, which would cover the distance in 17 hours and 20 minutes, at a commercial speed of 55 kilometers per hour, with only three intermediate stops: Matanzas, Villa Clara, and Camagüey. This proposal stands in stark contrast to the current reality, where journeys often take twice or even three times longer than anticipated.
The deterioration is not new. The MITRANS declared a "state of emergency" in February 2026, reducing the frequency of eastern trains to one departure every eight days.
In June, a second, even more severe cut was implemented: services to Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Holguín, and Bayamo-Manzanillo started to operate once every 16 days, the unrestricted sale of tickets was eliminated, and the APK Viajando application was suspended.
The consequences are palpable throughout the country. In Camagüey, state transport collapsed from 350,000 daily passengers to just 15,000 following that cut in June.
In May, a trip from Holguín to Havana took 27 hours, nearly double the estimated time while in February, passengers were stranded for hours due to broken locomotives in Camagüey.
The railway collapse is part of a historical decline: the number of passengers transported by train in Cuba fell from 33 million in 1992 to 7.8 million in 2016, and to just four million in 2023. Only 12 heavy locomotives out of the 34 needed are operational, and 67% of the tracks require maintenance, according to data from the Cuban railway system.
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