Like Cuba, the Philippines has huge sugar plantations. Called "Centrals", many of them brought in the cane to be processed at the mills on their own private railroad lines. The island of Negros was the last to use steam locomotives extensively, many of which burned bagasse--the waste residue from cane processing--as engine fuel. Ma-Ao Central 0-6-2 No. 8, built by Baldwin in 1920, was such a locomotive, shown here on December 31, 1981 as it crossed a jungle-surrounded timber trestle over the Sevillana River. The large hood over the tender protected the straw-like fuel from tropical rain storms.
