Friends of the Rail Forum

Jam-free commuting prophesy fulfilled

Daily Nation
By JOHN NGIRACHU jngirachu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Monday, November 12 2012 at 20:39

IN SUMMARY

- Syokimau Station is the first of its kind in Kenya, with electronic tickets that are swiped to open the turnstiles. Large screens at the platform announce departure times.
- Passengers will enjoy a more comfortable ride into the city centre as the old, cracked leather seats have been replaced with some comfortable green cushioned ones.
- Each coach can accommodate about 70 seated and 120 standing passengers, perhaps eliminating the crowding that forced some onto roofs and to hang from rickety doors.
- Motorists will be charged Sh300 — Sh200 for a two-way ticket and Sh100 for parking at the secure grounds.
- Commuters from estates off Mombasa Road and further south — Athi River, Kitengela, Syokimau and adjacent areas — should immediately begin to experience the comfort of an organised and regular train service.

Sometime in the 17th Century, a prophetess told her people what must have sounded least prophetic at the time.

Syokimau — for that was her name — spoke of the coming of a white man riding an iron snake with the legs of a centipede. He would have fire in his pockets — matches — and would speak like a bird — English.

The white man has since come and gone, and today, an iron snake will make its maiden journey from the station that bears her name.

Syokimau immortalised

She has been immortalised at the station where her statue stands, pointing Usain Bolt-like, at an iron snake suspended from the roof.

So significant is the event that President Kibaki and his entourage will be among the first to make a journey on the train from the station. The 16.5-kilometre ride into the city centre will be aboard a cream coach.

That should take 25 minutes. And while the distance can be a mere 15-minute drive on a good day, it can take two hours when traffic is bad, which it usually is on Mombasa Road.

After the commissioning, the presidential coach will be detached from the engine, and the train will begin to serve the public.

With the station’s construction and the laying of 2.2 kilometres of new railway tracks linking the station to the Nairobi-Mombasa line, the Syokimau station is a first in many ways.

The last station in Kenya was built in Butere, Western Kenya, 80 years ago. The last track was laid in 1901, when the Lunatic Express arrived at Port Florence, now called Kisumu.

Syokimau Station is the first of its kind in Kenya, with electronic tickets that are swiped to open the turnstiles. Large screens at the platform announce departure times.

Passengers will enjoy a more comfortable ride into the city centre as the old, cracked leather seats have been replaced with some comfortable green cushioned ones.

Each coach can accommodate about 70 seated and 120 standing passengers, perhaps eliminating the crowding that forced some onto roofs and to hang from rickety doors.

The station has space for cafes and shops as well as rest rooms. Escalators and a couple of lifts provide access to the upper floor, where more shops will be located.

Generators will kick in when Kenya Power goes AWOL, and a borehole has been sunk for constant supply of water.

The frequency of passenger trains on the route will double from the current one each way to two trips in the morning and another two in the evening.

In earlier interviews, Kenya Railways managing director Nduva Muli said the modern station will operate between 5am and 8 pm.

The trains, operated by Rift Valley Railways, will open their doors to the public tomorrow. A one-way ticket will cost Sh100.

Commuters from estates off Mombasa Road and further south — Athi River, Kitengela, Syokimau and adjacent areas — should immediately begin to experience the comfort of an organised and regular train service.

Changes at the Nairobi Railway terminus, currently congested and overpopulated by matatus, is part of the process to enable the train service to operate smoothly.

The station is considered important as the government implements a plan, long in coming, to make it easier to get in and out of Nairobi.

Its development is the first part of the joint project of the government and InfraCo, a project development company funded by donor agencies of the European Union. The deal was signed in on April 15, 2009.

The Syokimau stop has a parking lot for 2,500 vehicles. Motorists will be charged Sh300 — Sh200 for a two-way ticket and Sh100 for parking at the secure grounds.

This will make it possible for the operators to introduce the “park and ride” concept where motorists can leave their vehicles at the terminus and take the train into the city.

Kenya Railways acquired an additional 5.28 hectares (13.05 acres) earlier this year to increase the size of the parking lots.

Commuter upgrade

The parastatal is likely to use the experience from Syokimau to see how the rest of the Sh24 billion ($300 million) urban commuter upgrade will be implemented.

KR plans to develop a “core-system” covering 10 km and providing modern commuter rail services between Nairobi Railway Station and Ruiru, Embakasi, JKIA and Kikuyu.

Already, 17 companies are reported to have applied for the tender to lay the railway for the next phase of the Nairobi Urban Commuter Project.

The Sh24 billion commuter rail project has been divided into four phases, connecting the Central Business District (CBD) to Syokimau, Ngong, Kiserian Kikuyu and the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Kenyan capital Nairobi gets new train

13 November 2012 Last updated at 12:08 GMT BBC

A new commuter train has been launched in Kenya's capital, Nairobi - the first of its kind since independence in 1963.

The train will run between the city centre and the suburb of Syokimau, where Kenya has built its first railway station in more than 80 years.

The service is intended to ease traffic congestion in Nairobi, one of the fastest-growing African cities with a population of about three million.

President Mwai Kibaki is scheduled to be its first commuter.

The BBC's Wanyama Chebusiri in Nairobi says the new service will be much faster then the existing dilapidated trains and will run on a separate track.

'New eight-lane highway'

The 16.5-km (10-mile) ride from Syokimau to Nairobi is expected to take 15 minutes, while a car journey during rush-hour could take up to two hours, our reporter says.

The new station at Syokimau is modern - it will issue passengers with electronic tickets to swipe at turnstiles and there are also large screens to give train times, he adds.

The journey is the cheapest way of getting to central Nairobi, costing about $2.50 (£1.50).

Mr Kibaki has inaugurated the service, and is expected to be the first passenger to take the ride.

The launch is part of the government's ambitious Vision 2030 initiative to improve much-neglected infrastructure over the next 18 years, our reporter says.

A Chinese company has just built Kenya's first eight-lane highway, linking Nairobi to the densely populated industrial town of Thika, about 40 km away.

It was built at a cost of about $28bn.

Although the highway has not been officially launched, motorists are already using it.

The government says its next rail project will be to link Nairobi's city centre to the residential area of Kayole.

Kenya modernises the 'lunatic line' as it opens first train station in 80 years

Kenya opened its first new train station in 80 years on Tuesday. Mike Pflanz looks at the legacy of the British-built railway dubbed the 'lunatic line'.

By Mike Pflanz, Nairobi5:21PM GMT 13 Nov 2012
Telegraph

When 19th century British engineers hacked through the savannah to build Kenya’s first railway, man-eating lions, malarial swamps and spiralling costs prompted derision from home, with the venture dubbed “the lunatic line”.

Although more than 1,700 miles of tracks were eventually laid by the British, decades of post-independence mismanagement has now left the country with less than 700 miles of operational railway.

But on Tuesday Kenya opened its first new train station in 80 years, an event seen as the rebirth of rail and a symbol of the growth of East Africa’s largest economy.

The new station, 10 miles east of Nairobi, will send five trains a day from new suburban housing estates straight into the city centre in 25 minutes, a third of the time it currently takes on clogged roads.

For much of that journey, today’s commuters will ride on rails laid down by the British.

The Uganda Railway, as it was officially known, was envisaged as a link from Kenya’s Indian Ocean ports to the British Empire’s most politically and economically strategic colony, Uganda.

Work started in 1896, and almost instantly hit disaster as 30 indentured Indian and African labourers were killed by two lions known as the Man-Eaters of Tsavo.

Hundreds more died, many of malaria, until opposition MPs who nicknamed the project “the lunatic line” scrapped construction before the tracks had even reached Uganda, its intended destination.

Winston Churchill, who shot zebras next to the train’s engines, later called the endeavour “one of the finest expositions [of] the British art of 'muddling through’”.

“Through everything — through the forests, through the ravines, through troops of marauding lions, through famine, through war, through five years of excoriating Parliamentary debate, muddled and marched the railway,” he said.

Following independence in 1963, Kenya’s railways became a cash cow however, especially by Daniel arap Moi, the former president, and much of the network today lies in ruins.

The main link from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean, via Nairobi to Malaba on Kenya’s border with Uganda, remains the busiest stretch and still uses the route and most of the rails laid by the British between 1896 and 1901.

But an international consortium of investors, Rift Valley Railways, is now beginning a modernisation programme to bring Kenya’s railways into the modern age.

It intends to spend more than £180 million in the next five years on an expansion of both freight and passenger services, including the opening of Syokimau station and its new services.

The new station takes its name from an 18th-century prophetess of the Kamba tribe who, legend claims, was the first to predict the arrival of the British.

Syokimau is said to have described pale-skinned people would bring an “iron snake” that she said would move “with the legs of a millipede” and “breathe smoke”.

“The biggest challenge that the city has been facing is a lack of good infrastructure and transport to meet the needs of a growing metropolis,” said Brown Ondego, RVR’s executive chairman.

“Over the next five to seven years, the commuter railway network will be developed to about 70 miles, and we expect 50,000 to 70,000 people to be taking the train on a daily basis by then.”

Currently, an estimated 30,000 people a day use Nairobi’s 18 existing commuter services.

As Kenya’s economy expands at five per cent a year, so its middle class has also grown. Many are now buying up newbuild houses in modern estates to Nairobi’s east, but are using their cars to drive to work in the city, causing terrible congestion.

But each of the new nine-coach trains will carry up to 1,600 passengers, equal to 115 of the overcrowded and polluting minibus taxis that many blame for today’s clogged roads.

Few turn up for train's maiden journey to town

Daily Nation, Thursday November 15, 2012, p 36

A day after being commissioned by President Kibaki, the Syokimau Railway Station officially opened its doors to the public yesterday, with commuters treated to a free round-trip ride.

however, only a few people showed up with many others staying away, perhaps because of the fares.

Mr Dennis Kashero, the Rift Valley Railways general manager for marketing and communications, said the free rides were meant to introduce the new service to the residents after Tuesday's launch.

He said it was important that they sample what was on offer before they start paying for the service today.

Mr Gilbert Mogire, Taifa Leo's news editor, who was on the train's inaugural trip, expressed disappointment that it was almost empty.

Those complaining about the fares say the Sh120 being charged during peak hours, the Sh110 off peak and Sh100 for Nairobi Commuter Rail card holders were quite prohibitive.

On a normal day, matatu's [sic] charge Sh50 in the morning, when the traffic is heaviest, Sh40 when it gets a [sic] better and Sh30 when when it flows steadily as the day wears on.

Mr Mogire was however impressed by the short time it took to get to the city centre.

"It took me only 20 minutes to get to town... on a normal day; I would have spent ages in a traffic jam. This will now be a thing of the past," he said.

Nation Media Group's training coordinator Owino Opondo, who also used the new train service, said it was a godsend.

Mr Mogire however noted that if RVR's plan is to target the middle class as their main customers, they may not get the numbers as most prefer to drive not as a means of transport but as a status symbol.