Rail transport in Kenya

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Garratt locomotive 5907 Mount Kinangop with a freight train in Kibwezi station on the meter-gauge line between Mombasa and Nairobi

The rail transport in Kenya was limited last primarily on the Kenyan section of the Uganda Railway from Mombasa through Nairobi to Uganda border. In addition to the cross-border traffic to Uganda, there is another cross-border route to Tanzania , on which there is no longer any traffic today. Trains have been running on the new Mombasa – Nairobi line since May 2017 .

history

The first railway construction took place in 1888 by the Imperial British East Africa Company . She tried the surrounding area of the port Kilindini : with a (now the city of Mombasa) narrow-gauge railway of the gauge to tap 610 mm, the name Central Africa Railway received. The railway turned out to be an economic failure, passenger traffic never took place there. It is unclear whether freight traffic took place. The railway infrastructure was later largely used for the port railway of Mombasa.

On August 14, 1896, the British Parliament passed the legal and financial basis for the construction of the railway from the Indian Ocean to Lake Victoria , which began that same year. The line was built in meter gauge. The model was Indian railways, which is where some of the original material came from. On October 1, 1903, responsibility for the Uganda Railway (UR) was transferred to the administration of the colony . During this time, a tram was built in Mombasa, which was taken over by the state in 1907.

On February 26, 1926, the operator of the Uganda Railway was renamed Kenya and Uganda Railway (KUR), and in 1927 Kenya and Uganda Railway and Harbors (KUR & H).

Locomotives 9403 and 9318 with a freight train at Nakuru
Standard gauge locomotive 5102 on March 24, 2017 on a test drive at Makindu

On May 1, 1948, the Kenya and Uganda Railway and Harbors and Tanganyika Railway and Port Services were merged to form the East African Railways and Harbors Administration (EAR & H) and, after the country gained independence in 1963, in 1969 into East African Railways (EAR) renamed. After the customs and economic union between Kenya and Tanzania broke up in 1977 due to the widely divergent political and economic systems, the part of the common railroad that was on Kenyan territory was renamed Kenya Railways Cooperation (KR).

From 2002, preparations were made to privatize the KR . This finally happened on November 1, 2006, when the operation was transferred to a South African operator, the Rift Valley Railways Company Ltd. (RVR). The contract with Rift Valley Railways Company was terminated on July 31, 2017 due to insufficient investments and non-compliance with commitments to rehabilitate the line, since then the operator of the Kenyan meter gauge has been Kenya Railways Cooperation (KR) again.

On 27 October 2008, the President of Kenya and Uganda, decided Mwai Kibaki and Yoweri Museveni , a joint ministerial commission to investigate whether the construction of a standard gauge railway line from the port of Mombasa to Uganda , Rwanda , Burundi , the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Sudan (now South Sudan ) is possible. The construction of the section from Mombasa to Nairobi, carried out by Chinese companies (consortium led by the China Road and Bridge Corporation ) and 90% financed by the Export-Import Bank of China , went into operation at the end of May 2017, and the section up to the border was completed to Uganda is planned for 2021. On October 16, 2019, the first 120-kilometer section to Naivasha was opened.

stretch

The longest route in the country is the Uganda Railway, which crosses Kenya with 1089 km, see: Uganda Railway . From this line branch lines go off, see: Uganda-Bahn # branch lines .

Light railway on a Kenyan sisal plantation

In addition to the state railway system, there were a number of private narrow-gauge railways with a gauge of 610 mm, which were mainly used for factory traffic from sugar cane and sisal plantations . None of these networks are in operation today.

Between 2013 and 2017, a new standard gauge line was built between the port city of Mombasa and the inland capital Nairobi; the extension to Naivasha has existed since 2019 . The plan is to extend the route further west to Kampala in Uganda . From there there are plans for further routes north to Juba in South Sudan and south via Kigali ( Rwanda ) to Bujumbura in Burundi .

business

Train Nairobi – Mombasa en route on the Uganda Railway

Regular passenger traffic existed three times a week between Kisumu and Nairobi and between Nairobi and Mombasa in 2010 . Until about 1997 tour operators offered trips between Mombasa and Nairobi. This offer has been discontinued due to security concerns. Operational safety and security for travelers were not optimal, the speed of travel was low, derailments were frequent. In 1993 there was a railway accident when a bridge was washed away after heavy rainfall. 114 people were killed. In 1999 there were 32 deaths when a passenger train derailed due to brake failure near Tsavo National Park . In 2000 there were 13 deaths when the brakes failed again on a train. In the same year, a freight train carrying gasoline exploded, burning 25 people.

Since June 2017, passenger trains have been running daily on the standard gauge line between Mombasa and Nairobi. Since the end of April 2017, no passenger trains have been running on the parallel meter-gauge line.

literature

  • Ronald Hardy: The Iron Snake . New York 1965.
  • Richard T. Ogonda, George M. Onyango: Development of Transport and Communication . In: William Robert Ochieng: Historical Studies and Social Change in Western Kenya . Nairobi 2002. ISBN 978-9966-25-152-7 , pp. 219-231.
  • Neil Robinson: World Rail Atlas and historical summary. Vol. 7: North, East and Central Africa. World Rail Atlas Ltd., 2009. ISBN 978-954-92184-3-5 , pp. 41-43, maps 43, 45 and 46.
  • Matthias Hille: The railroad in Kenya - the dawn of modernity. Fern-Express, issue 4/2017, pp. 30–33.

Web links

See also

  • Cape Cairo Plan - unrealized British plans for a rail link from Egypt through the British colonies of East Africa to South Africa

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Passenger traffic ceased on May 2, 1998 or 1999 (Robinson, p. 42f. Gives both dates).
  2. ↑ Robinson, p. 41.
  3. ↑ Robinson, p. 79.
  4. ↑ Robinson, p. 41.
  5. ↑ 5,000 Chinese workers expected for railway projects in Africa , Raillynews.com, September 2, 2014.
  6. ↑ Billion dollar project : China is building a huge railway line in Africa , Spiegel Online, May 17, 2016.
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Pomrehn: China Railways for Africa. Telepolis , June 1, 2017, accessed the same day
  8. ↑ Kenya opens second phase of massive railway project. voanews.com dated October 17, 2019, accessed October 17, 2019
  9. ↑ Robinson, p. 43, shows three such systems.
  10. ^ Kenya Railway East Africa , accessed May 30, 2017
  11. ^ Mombasa – Nairobi standard gauge railway project. railway-technology.com, accessed May 30, 2017
  12. ↑ Information at seat61.com
  13. ↑ According to the English language Wikipedia
  14. ^ NZZ , March 25, 1999: Serious train accident in Kenya. At least 32 dead on the Nairobi-Mombasa route .
  15. ↑ According to the English language Wikipedia
  16. ↑ According to the English language Wikipedia