Santa Clara became the scene of the last battle of the revolution, where Che Guevara’s troops defeated Batista’s. An enormous prestige loss for the US-supported dictator, who sent more troops by train to Santa Clara. But Che’s men found out which train they were on, and removed the rails with a bulldozer. This made the train crash and the soldiers on board were made easy targets for the revolutionaries.
The incident, known in Cuba as “Tren blindado” in now commemorated with a monument in the spot where it happened. And some of the carriages are still there. As well as the actual bulldozer used.Â