Local passenger rail services in Las Tunas will be affected starting next Monday due to a lack of fuel allocated by the Ministry of Transportation, reported the provincial management of Ferrocarriles de Cuba.
The suspension was announced this Saturday on the Facebook profile of the official newspaper 26, which quoted Lizandra Peña Soria, the director of the Base Business Unit of Railways of Cuba in the region. The official confirmed that the province does not have the necessary fuel to maintain operations.
"The lack of availability of the fuel assigned by the Ministry in the province is the reason for the suspension of a service that we had restored and which was well received by the population," stated Peña Soria.
He also apologized to those affected, particularly the residents of remote communities who relied on that transportation.
The fuel had been purchased in freely convertible currency by the Ministry of Transportation through its development fund. Its availability allowed for the resumption in October of transfers within Las Tunas, the route to Camagüey, and the so-called urban "trencito" to El Cornito. However, the purchase in foreign currency did not prevent the service from being suspended again a few weeks later.
The news sparked frustration and skepticism among citizens. "Joy in the poor man's house," summarized a user in the comments of the official post.
Another questioned whether the fuel shortage affects public transport, ambulances, and garbage collection vehicles, but not, in his view, the patrols, State Security motorcycles, and cars of the leaders of the Communist Party.
"Apologies and apologies and solutions?? Never," wrote another resident, in a reaction that reflects the weariness caused by the repeated interruptions.
The train between Las Tunas and Camagüey has been restored at the beginning of October with three weekly services and a ticket price of 600 Cuban pesos, which is approximately 19% of the national minimum wage of 3,210 pesos.
The new suspension adds to the problems that have plagued the operation of the Cuban railway. In July, it was reported that monthly operations had declined by 74%, from a historic high of 62 services to just 16. At that time, only 12 of the 34 necessary locomotives were operational, and 67% of the tracks needed maintenance.
In August, the Ministry of Transport itself admitted that even those minimal frequencies could not be guaranteed due to the lack of available diesel at the necessary time.
The crisis is also affecting road transportation. In October, Minister Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila acknowledged that the daily departures of interprovincial buses from Havana had dropped from 419 in 2025 to just 11 in 2026, a reduction of 97.4%.
Recently, government officials confirmed that the state service of Ómnibus Nacionales carried fewer than 1,000 passengers daily nationwide, compared to over 5,000 before the crisis.
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