In the late 1990's and early 2000's, many steam railway enthusiasts would descend upon the Caribbean island of Cuba, between Christmas and Easter, to see and photograph the old, manly American, steam engines, which ran the Zafra (Sugar harvest) trains bringing the sugar cane from the fields into the mills (Centrales) for processing.
This little island in the sun, with its friendly girls to while away the evenings after a hard day's photography, became an annual pleasure for British gricers - many of whom spent much of the rest of the winters freezing their b******s off on the Jingpeng Pass in China - until it all came to an end in around 2004 - the former Soviet market for sugar collapsed, and most of the mills closed, and the diverse steam train operations, of several gauges, came to an end.
This short film was made during the Zafra of 2000 - with the first generation of digital video - an improvement on analogue, but not up to the quality of current 4K video - but for those who were around then, we hope that it will revive memories of nearly a quarter of a century ago; and for those who are too young, we hope it will give you an idea of what you missed!
In 2010 we visited Cuba again - by this time the genuine sugar mill steam operations were long gone, but tourist steam operations remained at Jose Smith Comas mill; and an ancient Rogers 2-4-2 was giving rides on the Havana waterfront. Running time c.40 minutes

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