SGR expected to be Completed by June 2017

The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) will be completed in June next year according to the Managing Director of Kenya Railways Atanas Maina.

Construction of the 609km long stretch of railroad begun in October 2013 and was scheduled to be completed by December 2017, this early completion will be a great achievement since it will have been speeded up by five months.

Maina stated that together with his technical team, they will be leaving for China to inspect the equipment that is to be delivered in Kenya to ensure that they are of the correct specifications. The said equipment includes 56 locomotives, 1,620 freight wagons and 40 passenger wagons.

He added that faster completion of the project was agreed on with China Road and Bridge Corporation, a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Co. contracted to build the project.

The SGR is expected to act as a boost in the Kenyan economy by at least 1.5 per cent and it is said to be the biggest in the country since independence and it is expected to shorten passenger travel time from Mombasa to Nairobi from more than 10 hours to less than four hours.

The single-track standard gauge railway between Mombasa and Nairobi will have a route length of 472km and a total length of 609km. It will run through the counties of Mombasa, Kilifi, Kwale, Taita-Taveta, Makueni, Kajiado, Machakos and Nairobi.

In the second phase, the standard gauge railway is proposed to connect Mombasa to Malaba on the boarder and continue onwards to Kampala. It will run further to Kigali, Rwanda with a branch line in Juba, South Sudan. Branch lines along the route are expected to extend to Kisumu, Kasese and Pakwach.

The standard gauge railway is a flagship project under the Kenya Vision 2030 development agenda with the purposes of simplifying transport operations across the borders and also reduce travel costs. It is also expected to boost the economies of Kenya and her neighboring countries.

Already, the China Roads and Bridge Construction company, which is constructing the Mombasa-Nairobi line, is carrying out a feasibility study that will be completed in the next few months, said Mr Maina.

Article by Vera Shawiza.