STATION 31 a vision of the past and the future
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- Published: Sunday, 12 November 2017 08:44
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As if I knew how to stamp that rumbrous simultaneous sound of different notes, which overlap and fuse in polyrhythmic resonance and whose arrival at the station, is a hypnotic tinkling of bell-like toy-that shrinks inside my shoes when I get up on the Day of Kings.
His first warning came as a fortuitous advance through the innate noise in the body of the machine; then the whistles entering the Noguerol curve, almost screams and chest beats both, in disparate sequences ... a short two to start suddenly seven and six followed, behind the early anointing of the travelers on the long platform and in turn the squeak of iron on iron. The tachycardia of the rails.
However, I could not avoid a vibrating shudder, treasured in childhood, when the train was over, and although I did not leave in disarray there, as in the first experience of the Lumiere, there still spreads that advice of the parents physically based on the force of attraction that originates under the running of a train in activity.
Alarm that was depreciating by the wind wind of tranquility, which leaves us the same caravan of cars to pass in front of our dizzy and motionless perception and then by the little danger that supposedly offers to "stop in the dry".
However, I am frightened by a new scare near the feet similar to the sets of "Maykel" Jackson, which I know not by "TV" but familiarly, because with that chota denomination always expressed a cousin of mine before the steaming dishes that the Aunt Ophelia was at her table. Lonely startled in vain at the final gesture of rest of the locomotive.
In fact, that stretch of waiting on the platform seems to me on a pier, ecstatic on the horizon and dizzy by the waves, immeasurable spirituality of the platforms as churches, either historically speaking or poetically writing. The machine in this formation stands out as the prettiest girl in town.
With the help of intuition, at the beginning of the nineties of the last century, in full existence in the Sierra de Cubitas municipality, the concentration of students and schools in the largest field of the province and citrus still constitute the main line of its economy, I thought I discovered another activity that has irreplaceably contributed to the development of the town.
Thus, in contrast to the fact that schools and citrus were dominant in all the representations and in the imaginary of the territory in those days, I immediately included this element in the graphic poster El Gran Cachimbo (allegorical pasque for the founding of the town of Sola) then hardly perceived as an element of representation of the historical past, especially in the emergence and consolidation of the first fifty years.
We suppose that in the absence of its just recognition it has worked that its services were not exclusively in our territory, because it is a colossal investment that encompassed all the northern part of the previous province of Camagüey and that is not part of us, in the sense traditional, not to emerge or settle here, only passes through the area, seeing as something "outside" and disadvantaged by the current relegation of that sector. We refer to the railway as researchers, but also as historical beneficiaries.
After the North Line of Cuba, on March 1, 1919, and open to public service on June 1 of the same year, it would become tangible projects and possibilities that opened it to the entire northern territory.
Sola, at first mention, would build four indispensable buildings. In fact, in the original plan of the town, which dates from 1918, a broad strip of land is reserved on the south side of the northern line that occupied two blocks and was recognized in that location document for the construction of the train station.
Finally, four important facilities were built in this area: the housing of the station manager (a spacious wooden chalet on stilts and hipped roof with elevated tank and windmill), the house of the railway communications chief and a nearby building to keep the instruments and the means of that function (including the well-known "storks", and the railway station, which except for a few changes is the one that remains until today, inaugurated on November 11, 1921.
Although it should be mentioned that between 1919 and 1921 he was preceded by a standard wooden construction that served as the initial stop; however, to be designated a person for their attention and cleaning, the tickets were picked at the train, located in front of the current home of the Morejón family, located next to the road sign of kilometer 276.
Almost simultaneously with the railway station, and because of the possibility of communication, preparations began for the construction of the Sixto Sugar Mill, which added to the sugar factory a wide infrastructure in the town and in the area that included: branches , passing byways, commercial pooches and railway yards, as well as other facilities such as sugarcane ferries (cranes) with the advantages of work they brought for the economy of the place.
On the other hand, the same perspective of the plant originated the creation of sugarcane colonies and a modest neighborhood for the personnel employed to administer it by the Sixto Central Sugar Company itself. The latter could be described in about twelve timber-grooved buildings with a hipped roof on piloting, a construction typology very much in use at the time, which included the houses of the heads of the field, house-mail, the house of the administrator Francisco José de Sola and Bobadilla, Visit house, office. With portals on three sides, large lounge and pay box. Also other homes, such as those of the Herrero-Toscano, Gómez-Sartorio and Carlos Campos. In the house of the Gómez-Sartorio lived then Rogelio Figueroa González: municipal judge and councilman of the Camagüey municipality.
The neighborhood of the company, as it was known then that the town had its own power plant, independent of the Barreto plant, which served the town, identified then as La Chambelona, later the original core of Sola. And it also had a tennis court.
According to deed 279, of December 11, 1926, Francisco Sola sells to Compañía Azucarera Canasí, a public limited company incorporated in 1922 and of which he was a representative; however, it was still called Sixto Central Sugar Company in May 1933, and it was composed 2/3 of lot 23 of the 60-acre San Rafael de Canasí farm.
The branches (another of the incorporated advances) were built between 1922 and 1924, all were born in La Aguada, the middle area within the area chosen for the construction of the Sixto Power Plant.
The only one of these branches in the southern band of the main line ran through the Rincón Caliente district of Sola, on one side of the house belonging to the Hernàndez-Echemendìa family, to the cane ferry near the well of "La Carolina" in the lands of the deceased farmer José Luìs Palomino. This pool served oxen and people for a prolonged dry period in 1945.
It continued the trajectory by a lateral one and the bottom of the holy field in the direction of Pozo Prieto, where a habitable place and a crane settled; later a third ferry on the road of Arsenio Estrada in front of the basic secondary school in the field known as Sola 5) and from there, a fourth ferry in the aguacatal before the former school with pseudonym Sola 16, linking with another crane in the area of Cordero, from where a new branch line entered the territory of Viguetas on the edge of the Sierra de Cubitas and within the current Los Picos estate, there was finally the sixth crane, which, despite its existence, resides a controversy since some locals maintain that "he never threw cane".
In a near point, of this secondary route of the railroad line, with the batey of the Guácimas, another branch towards that destiny was connected by land of the landowner Cesario Noguerol, that soon acquired in property Gillo Corredera.
The second branch, also originating in "La Aguada", but this time following the opposite side of the main road (the aforementioned Northern Line) traversed the batches 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 passing through the property of Daniel Vega, to end up in the dairy of some islanders.
A third branch, singularly narrow gauge and also along the northern path, always taking as a reference the Caibarien-Puerto Tarafa railway, reached San Nicolás, near the Mister Nubes estate on the side of the road to Puerto Piloto.
The fourth branch was the shortest of all, without reaching penalties to the kilometer and starting as the previous ones of the same trunk, it ended up in the ferry known as "The crane of Yara", technical means installed then in front of the current commercial complex of the Pueblo distribution New.
A route of the Northern Line of the year 1925, within the publication El Ferroviario, in its special edition dedicated to the subject, shows a fork that connected this, by the zone of San José Colorado, to the town of La Gloria, but they do not know each other nor have there been testimonies or evidence that it was actually built.
It is necessary to reiterate once again, the bad gradation in the construction of the sugar mill did not prevent the sugarcane colonies being maintained for their supply or the detour created as access to the future railway yard of the plant, which would later serve the machines themselves (2). , see foot article) of sugarcane drag and trains that had origin in Sola, that during the Republic were several: Júcaro, Morón and (believe it or not believe it) the very Havana.
The railroad has been one of the symbols of progress of humanity since its appearance, so it should not be a casual novelty that of the five hotels that the town had in those years, four were built in front of the Northern Railways. Cuba, on Linea Street (now Calle Oscar Rodríguez.
Hotel Aurora by Benito Bercedo in partnership with Antonio García. It became two-storey in 1928. It offered food, drink and lodging, not allowing board games. As a curious note of the hostel I will mention that the crew of the Gas car La Habana-Sola was staying there and they made their stay as agronomists two Soviet soldiers who were exploring places in the Island to locate the bases of the operative contingent during October 1962.
Hotel España by Manuel Salgado, its extension reached the family home on Calle Kelly (now calle José Martí), offering lodging, rent and food services. Having even guests who had their own room. On the second floor, lodged Lodge 172 in the 1940s, which had rented several rooms there, before having its own headquarters on Villalba Avenue (now Mario Herrero Toscano Avenue).
Villa de Caibarien de Francisco (Pancho) Canals. Hostel on one floor that offered accommodation and food.
Finally, the New Spain Hotel owned by Galicians, with high piloting and located at the end of Calle Línea entering the Noguerol curve. This property collapsed in 1932, moving its owners to the city of Camagüey where another facility was built which would retain the previous name.
It is also striking the location in front of the railroad of the first financial bank that existed in Sola: the Trillo de Morón Bank and the Aserrío de Jesús and Emilio Fernández that had the sawmill in front of the train station itself.
The latter had, in addition to the main line, two deviating passage and a commercial pooch and from there was connected by an underground pipeline with the Salgado property, specifically the pipeline reached the garage next to the family home and from there, another stretch to a pump located on Kelly Street, corner of Villalba Avenue, installed right on the eaves of the portal of the first location of the store "La Comercial".
The Aserrío of the Fernández was bigger than the one of Imías, because of the size of its only saw blade and the almost eighty meters of front that included, in addition to the sawmill, office, warehouse, garage, mechanical workshop and housing. At the beginning of the forties, they acquired it, through their purchase, residents in the town of Elia. In his staff, during his service in Sola, saw saw functions as a closer, stoker, oven and sawdust and ash eater.
Another three buildings were built on account of the railroad, one in use and the others for rent as they were: the house in Funcia street for Pablo Espinosa Chief of railway communications, the house occupied by Manolo Gutiérrez in calle Martíesquina on Avenida Villalba and finally the house-cafe of "Pepe" Rivero, which had also been Barracks of the rural guard, housing and dairy of Constantino Gutierrez with sale there of that product, and the well-known bar of Irmia, wooden construction, two-storey villa type with portals to the four winds. The second level of the building was initially used as a home, then it was a large room with a pool table and downstairs cafeteria with sandwiches and liquors.
To all this must be added the traditional and tangible benefits and services of the railroad from which the town of Sola would be favored favored and where they relate, firstly, the transport of cargo and passengers, the benefits of the International Well Fargo Company, the Telegraph , the Post Office, the Publications and the Daily Written Press.
An immense benefit because it is theoretically the only practicable way to link the town in the long period referred to (1919-1950), since it would not be until the last decade that the road to Minas was completed.
Such was this panorama, that as we already know in our territory the struggle of the peasants of Cubitas during the republic, unlike the struggles for the land that the peasantry carried out in the whole island, here the struggle was for the construction of roads and highways to transport sick people or take out their products.
For these reasons one of the trains that traveled daily, and there were stages of eight itineraries a day, the one known in the imagination of the "locals" as "The 31" has marked relevance. In addition to its six passenger cars, it was the only one that had an express car for cargo: moving, merchandise for establishments, postal correspondence, orders and requests for domestic or work items, newspapers, magazines ... The trade needed he, the culture arrived here, the people depended on it for survival and prosperity in a broad and integral sense.
If there is still any doubt about what the railroad represented and the magnitude of its contribution to the existence of the town of Sola in its emergence, consolidation and development, mainly in the initial stage but still until today, we know its effect in the places that They did not have that luck, with the neighbor La Gloria:
"There was one last way out, a hope that would save the colony: it was the news of a railroad that had to pass through these lands and a lot of assurance that it was for La Gloria City ... and surely a line of exit to Nuevitas and another Morón was the resurgence of the place ... Colonel Tarafa promised that the railroad would pass through La Gloria, and since it was really the only important point in the area, we were sure that it would be so.
The colony came to a time when the railroad saved us or sank us. And as in a jump the railway was already open ʅ eight kilometers from here ...
The sadness we felt when the railway was already finished ...
Despair fell on the colony. The defeat was in the depths of men. Hit as hard as you would in the history of this place Mr. Charles Bullford ... (3, see foot article).
(Photos: Author)
Foot of article
1. "Jaime Sarusky Miller ʃ National Prize of Literature 2004ʅ preserves a vague memory of his childhood in the native Florence, from where he left when he was six years old, but he does not forget ... that watching the train marked the life of the people inhabited by hard-working people and isolated, whose generosity was its greatest strength. In his memory remain unchanged the smell of that land, the railway line, the noise of trains when they crossed the green mountains and even the impeccable uniform of the drivers to whom he said goodbye when passing the machines.
His father arrived from Poland in 1924 and, working on the repair of the North Railway of Cuba, he collected pennies by penny to fulfill his dream of dedicating himself to trade, which he did for some time in that same locality. "
2- The infantile mind is eloquent and firm for the memories of that stage by associations of its own imaginary: "The machine that was kept in the` guay` (way) was number 45, I remember it because we put bottle plates on the rails to be crushed. " The steam engine belonged to the central Florida park. Testimony of Aida Herrero Toscano, 76 years old. Interview February 16, 2006.
3- Enrique Cirules: Conversation with the last American. Editorial Art and Literature, Havana, 1978. P. 154,155 and 156.