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(CUBA.) Lemaur, Felix. A pair of planning documents from Cuba's first railroad. Manuscripts Signed, [14], [23] pages. Folio, loose leaves; browned, stitch holes in inner margins. Havana, 15 November and 14 December 1830
In the first flowering of railroad technology, just five years after the first test of a passenger train in England, Cuban leaders became interested in a rail line to carry sugar and coffee from inland Güines to port in Havana. Of the two competing proposals, the one by canal engineer Felix Lemaur was accepted concerning the route and logistics. Approval, fundraising, and actual construction took seven years, but in 1837 the railroad was launched, one of the first in the world and beating Spain by more than a decade. See Zanetti & Garcia, Sugar & Railroads: A Cuban History, pages 18-33. The first document is titled 'Informe sobre el proyecto del camino de carriles de hierro dende esta plasa a la villa de Giünes' [sic] and the second longer document is 'Continuacion del informe . . ." The first discusses the pros and cons of different routes, while the second discusses some of the engineering considerations that had been raised by American consultant John L. Sullivan, and compares the merits of steam power versus the much less expensive horse-drawn cars. These documents are of considerable importance to the history of Cuba and to the development of railroads in the Americas.
