http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/central-south-america/cuba-completes-mariel-port-rail-link.html
I find it ironic that one who calls the liberal rag LA Times a “conservative tabloid” and who rails against a press that is, here your are correct, largely ignorant of the railroad industry, feels the need to spice up your headline with a claim about the FEC that the article does not make.
Those who live in glass houses would be wise not to throw stones.
Mac
The original intent of Flagler buiding the FEC was to have trade with a Caribbean nations and Cuba was a big custumer pre-Castro with railroad car ships going back and forth. Now with contanerisation replacing railcars the FEC is in a unique position to profit from trade to Cuba as it always has been.
Yeah, that’s right. You could climb into a Pullman and alight in Havana without changing trains – or cars.
More on the future-
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-cuba-ferries-seaports-20150529-story.html
It appears you have to subscribe in order to read the article.
I would tend to agree with Mac. It is possibly a case of youthful exhuberance and a lack of depth in history, on the part of the OP. Personally, i would tend to take a long cautious look at the current Cuban situation. In the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution and the clamatious Bay of Pigs ‘adventure’(?). The USA ‘shunned’ the Cuban Government, and any relations with the Island Country. Over time our ‘allies’ not so much, Russia was involved to a very large degree as a customer of the Cuban sugar.
Ultimately, the USA has been left in the Cuban taillights. The Hershey railroad empire on the island has become a museum-like shadow, and no longer a property of Hershey. Cuba has become a commercial graveyard for Russian rail equipment. [See the article from the OP on Russian DMU’s for instances]
I think it would be safe to say, from the stories about the Cuban Govt’d finances, It most probably was the Russians or possibly the Chinese (maybe to support their oil exporation/drilling in the area of Cuba?); who were the financial/construction resource for this ‘new’ Cuban railroad project.
USA participation/benefit? I knda doubt it…for some time. Just [2c]
I wonder what the cost per foot of the Key West to Havana tunnel will be; rebuilding the FEC Key West extension will be pocket change by comparison…
actually, American passenger rail equipment didn’t ride the ferry from Key West to Cuba, only the freight cars did. FEC passenger trains would arrive on the dock in Key West, passengers would get off, cross the dock, and board the ferry to Cuba. but it is true that it was a ‘one seat’ ride from Pennsylvania Station, New York City to Key West. (source of information: Seth Bramson)
Unless the proposed (imagined?) railroad traffic has Florida or Cuba as it’s destination, wouldn’t all the freight bypass the FEC by shipping through Houston, New York, etc…?
If you look at Mariel, Cuba in Google Maps satellite view, the new container facility is quite evident on the west side of the harbour bay. You can also clearly follow the excavations for the new rail line around the bottom of the bay all the way back to the southwest side of Havana where it ties in with other rail lines. Let’s hope it helps keep big transport trucks off the Cuban road system.