Kenyan steam and railway museum

[John Ashworth]

During a recent visit to Kenya I visited the railway museum for the first time in more than 8 years. I also gained access to the three operational steam locomotives in the Rift Valley Railways workshop. I made e-mail contact with one of the overseas blokes who has been involved in the Kenyan steam project and he asked me for some feedback on the state of the locos. This is what I wrote:

I succeeded in getting into the workshop this morning, although it took a while. First I got a note of introduction from Tom Nyika at the museum. That got me past the first gate guard but not the inner one, who insisted that I also needed permission from RVR. So I walked to their PR department in the main railways HQ where Judy gave me a note, which worked. In the shed I was shown around by Peter Ndonga and was also introduced to manager Wynand Badenhorst. Everyone was very helpful and friendly, although Peter told me that RVR recently refused admission to a Belgian who wanted to take photos.

To be honest there's not a lot I can tell you about the three locos. They are stored safely in the shed and appear to be intact - I don't see anything obviously missing. They're very dirty indeed - if I were firing one of them I'd have to spend a few hours with a paraffin rag before I could feel comfortable on the footplate. Peter says they're always cleaned before use. Neither Peter nor Wynand appeared to be aware of any major faults - Wynand said they hadn't been steamed recently so they didn't know if anything was wrong. There's no sign of any activity around the locos. I took some photos.

The shed in which the steam locos are standing is very clean. While I was there they were pushing a couple of fairly battered looking diesels onto the other inspection pit in the same shed. Walking from the main gate to the shed we did walk past rows of old bogies, but at least they were in some sort of ordered pile, not just scattered all over the place.

Tom in the museum told me that Kenya Railways is hoping to start regular tourist runs from June.

There is an East-African-Steam Yahoo group.