Hershey Sugar Town and Electric Railway

The Ruins Of A Model Sugar Town Built By The American Chocolate Manufacturer Milton Hershey, And Of The Only Electric Railway Cuba Ever Had, Which Ran Ninety Kilometres From Havana To Matanzas · Santa Cruz del Norte, Mayabeque

In 1916 Milton Hershey, who made chocolate in Pennsylvania and needed sugar he could rely on, bought land on this coast and built a mill and a town to go with it - houses with gardens, a school, a hospital, a golf course and an orphanage, all named Hershey after himself. To move the cane and the people he built an electric railway ninety kilometres from Casablanca in Havana to Matanzas, which opened in 1922 and was the only electric railway Cuba ever had. After 1959 the town was renamed Camilo Cienfuegos. The mill closed in 2002 and was largely broken up, and the railway limped on for years with ancient carriages bought second-hand from Spain before service became sporadic and then effectively stopped. What is left is a company town without its company and a line nobody should plan to travel on. There is no ticket, no signage and nobody to ask - it is a working town that lost its industry, and what you get out of it depends entirely on what you bring to it.

Camilo Cienfuegos, formerly Central Hershey, Santa Cruz del Norte, Mayabeque, Santa Cruz del Norte, Mayabeque, Cuba

The town and the mill ruins are open ground and can be walked at any time; this is not a managed site and there is no ticket, no visitor centre and no interpretation. THE ELECTRIC RAILWAY'S SERVICE HAS BEEN SUSPENDED AND INTERMITTENT FOR YEARS - do not plan any journey on it. The Jardines de Hershey on the Yumuri river nearby keep daylight hours. About an hour from Havana.

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