According to press reports, “it is now emerging that the logistics needed for the planned East African standard gauge railway network will pose enormous challenges. These are however outweighed by the opportunities.”
All five members of the East African Community have agreed in principle to build the lines in their territories. Construction of the regional railway standard gauge network is to begin in Kenya in February 2012 but it is not expected that the project will be complete in the entire region until 2050.
Work is to proceed in four phases. The first will be the Mombasa-Malaba-Kampala line. An extension westwards will follow, to Kigali in Rwanda and Bujumbura in Burundi. Another new line is to run north-westwards from a planned new port at Lamu to Lokichogio, eventually reaching Juba; and there is to be a “high-capacity”, standard gauge line from Nairobi to Moyale for onward connection to Addis Abeba in Ethiopia. The projects form part of Kenya’s “Vision 2030” plans.
Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) managing director Duva Muli points out that the cost of transport in the region is very high compared with world benchmarks – “hence the need for the regional standard gauge railway.” Transport for goods and services in the region is “as high as” 45% of total costs, compared with less than 15% in countries with good railway systems. “Uneconomic and unreliable interurban passenger transport has also led to congestion in cities, while the shift from rail to roads has resulted in high costs of road maintenance.”
“If business in the region continues to grow,” Muli is quoted saying, Mombasa port will have to process at least 30 million tonnes a year. And if the railway network remains the same, then a [road] truck will have to leave the port every minute of every day, putting major strains on road infrastructure. It could lock out most transit goods”.
The existing metre gauge railway, Muli says, faces challenges of obsolescence, limited capacity in tonnage and speed. As a result, the railway accounts for less than 4% of freight haulage to and from the port.
The proposed Lamu port –with a natural deep harbour and a connecting railway network — will have the potential to create a “land bridge across Africa”. KRC envisages a Lamu to Douala (in Sénégal) railway that would take four-and-a-half days. The voyage by sea takes 25 days.
Following the concessioning of Kenya Railways’ operations to Rift Valley Railways (RVR), KRC was turned into an asset authority to manage non-conceded assets.
However, the infrastructure RVR is using still belongs to Kenya Railways. KRC is now mainly concerned with safety issues, performance, the environment and passenger tariffs. The present Kenya-Uganda Railway was built on the route “of least resistance” because of lack of machinery and technology to build bridges, and it “meanders around difficult terrain. However, trains on the planned standard gauge line from Mombasa to Kampala will bypass Nairobi, running through Konza, behind the Ngong Hills, Maimahiu and Naivasha.

Original article [Railways Africa]