4-2-2 number 1 La Junta, built in 1843 in the USA by Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor for the FC Matanzas a Sabanilla, is plintthed at Havana Central station on 19/03/1999. Photo Mike Squire

Cuba was only the 2nd country outside Europe to construct a locomotive worked railway, with the opening of the first section of the railway from Havana to Guines in 1837. As with coal in Britain, it was sugar production in Cuba that drove this development.