Cuban Railroad Recovery
BY LOURDES PÉREZ NAVARRO 

Under Cuba’s conditions, the railroad is an irreplaceable means of transportation. Given the characteristics of the island, long and narrow and over 1,000 kilometres long, there’s no better transportation system to cover long the distances by land, economically speaking, to carry cargo or passengers. 

The EJT soldiers inject new life into the railroads. they’re a reserve for the training of the experts the country needs for the construction and exploitation of railways. 

This reality was expressed by Revolution leader Fidel Castro on January 29, 1975, during the main meeting for the Day of Railroad Workers, celebrated in the city of Placetas, in central Las Villas province at the time. 

The first stretch of the reconstruction of the central railroad was inaugurated on that date, something of great significance for the national economy. The extension of the work covered some 1,149 kilometers, on the Havana-Santiago de Cuba stretch. The objective was to have trains circulating at a speed of up to 140 kilometers per hour, with new technology and high levels of safety in their operation. 

New investments humanize work, a fundamental matter for the attention of workers’ needs. This KGT-V MULTIPurpose equipment performs eight operations, from demolishing with hammersa to the cleaning of ditches. 

Years later, economic and financial limitations, essentially during the so-called special economic period, caused this transportation system to collapse. Today, its revitalization is a priority. For this purpose, the State has allocated 600 million dollars. 

If investing in resources is paramount, equally important is the training of machinists, medium level technicians and high level specialists in the field of railroads, with whom it could be possible to carry out the intense program pf recovery of railways and their infrastructure, which is already in motion. 

RESERVES OF RAILROAD WORKERS 

Among the main problems faced by the railroads are the discipline and human resources, Rolando Navarro, director general of the Cuban Railroad Association, told this newspaper. 

We’re lacking competent leaders, executives and technicians, besides training and systematic re-qualification of the staff, he pointed out. There are places where we don’t have the right leaders for this job, but we don’t have better trained ones to replace them. 

"It’s imperative to recover the rigorous discipline that has always characterized railroad workers. We can materialize investments, implement new systems of payment; however, if we don’t achieve the order and discipline railroad requires, we’ll never advance in its revitalization", he underlined. 

"Over the last few years, the technical level of railroad workers has decreased. Standing out among the main reasons are insufficient attention to workers’ needs, deficient labor conditions and wages that do not encourage either productivity or the line of promotion to leadership, aspects in which decisions are currently made, like the prompt implementation of new systems of payment according to results, essentially for railway workers, where there’s a severe shortage of personnel." 

"These situations have caused the exodus of the majority of the qualified force, to which is added the aging of workers and their subsequent retirement or their death," comments Navarro. 

The Association has approved a payroll of 23,000 workers, which is only 88% covered - 43% has medium educational level and 4% of them are university graduates (most of them graduated in specialties other than this field). These factors limit the development of railroad programs, considers Navarro. 

The impact of the lack of specialists is reflected in the critical situation presented by posts in technical and productive areas, like workshops, railways and bridges, communication and signaling. 

All this is the result of the non-existence, for several years now, of technological schools and university careers specific to the railroad activity. 

In order to change this situation, measures aimed at training the labor force demanded by the railroad have been adopted, together with the ministries of Education and Higher Education, explained the Association’s director. 

One of them consists in attracting fourth and fifth year students of university careers related to this branch of Transportation (mechanical, civil and electric engineers, among others), so once they graduate they work in the railroad system and specialize by way of postgraduate courses. In addition, in the upcoming 2010-2011 academic year, the José Antonio Echeverría Higher Polytechnic Institute will begin to train railroad professionals. 

For that period, a group of technical schools will reopen their doors to railroad specialties, among them: Mártires de Chile, in Havana; Cándido González, in eatern Camagüey province and another one in western Pinar del Río province; while the one located in the central city of Sagua la Grande will continue its courses. 

The railroad also needs skilled workers: blacksmiths, tinsmiths and lathe operators, among others. Coordination with corresponding schools is already being made in order to train them. "We have our own tools and workshops and the knowledge of experienced workers; these are elements that will also allow the training of more and better professionals", specified Navarro. 

Another measure consists in the integration of soldiers from the Youth Labor Army (EJT) to railway work; 300 are already incorporated and these will amount to 2, 000 by the end of the year. These boys, he asserted, will be the main reserve for university careers and medium level technicians. "We recently contacted some of them in Las Tunas, and the first four candidates came out of that discussion", he commented. 

The implementation of these measures, besides making up the current deficiencies in the railroad sector, will also contribute, in full agreement with the ideas expressed by Revolution leader Fidel Castro 35 years ago, so that "our railroads in the future, once modernized, will stand out for their seriousness and efficiency, their sense of responsibility and their discipline." 

And that’s the path they’ve taken, in pursuit of the recovery and promotion of the necessary trade skills of the railroad worker.

Taken from Granma Daily