Kenya Standard Gauge Railway: Reducing travel time by half

The Kenya Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), which is estimated at the cost of US$3.6 billion, is a railway that will be running through Nairobi, Athi River, Emali, Kibwezi, Mtito Andei, Voi, Miasenyi, Mariakani, and Mombasa.

Later on, the railway is expected to pass through cities, such as Juba, in South Sudan and Kampala, in Uganda. The railway line that the SRG runs on was made by the China Road and Bridge Corporation. The railway line is about 485 km.

The SGR, which is the biggest project in Kenya, is expected to carry 25 million tons per year and shorten the passenger time by half from Nairobi to Mombasa from about 8 hours to 4 hours for the passenger train at an average speed of 120km per hour. The project that began in October 2013 is expected to transport its first passengers on June 2017.

In a test drive that was conducted on March, 2017 on the SGR, it was shown that that the passengers will spend 2 hours travelling from Nairobi to Mtito Andei and the same hours from Mtito Andei to Mombasa at a speed of 100km per hour. This means that entire journey will take about 4 hours and 30 minutes.

However, there have been controversies about the cost of the project as compared to a similar project in Ethiopia. For example, the length of the railway line in Kenya is 485 km while in Ethiopia is 656km at a cost of 3.9 billion and $3 billion, respectively.

In response to the differences in the cost of the project, Mr. Keter is quoted saying,

"Someone must have misused their office. I see a lot of misadvise and misleading."

A lot of Kenyans are however divided on the issue of the cost of the project and whether Kenya spent more money than expected.

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