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The town of Coliseo hosts the twin mills of Granma and Victoria de Yaguajay. In recent years, all production has been concentrated at Granma, the mill at Victoria being closed although the locomotive repair facility has remained open. This has resulted in a number of locomotives nominally allocated here being loaned to other mills, most notably Alco 2-8-0 1594 which has seen service at a different mill each year for some time.
While steam has been used on shunting within the mill and for trips to the two loading points nearby, inevitably interest for the visitor has centred on workings to the loading point at San Pablo beyond the small town of Carlos Rojas. This involves using the FCC main line between Cárdenas and Jovellanos. From there on to the mill area there is a separate track through further loading points, which broadly parallels the (new) main line to Matanzas which, however, as the pictures show is occasionally used for sugar trains.
This route is readily accessible and was always popular with the visitors, but by 1997 the Carlos Rojas working was regularly diesel. However, even in 1999, it was occasionally possible to see steam here, although such occurrences are bound to get fewer and fewer.
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