Kenya plans: 12 new commuter stations plus South Sudan link

[John Ashworth]

Kenya Railways Plans to Build 12 New Commuter Stations, South Sudan Link

By Eric Ombok - Jul 22, 2011 1:02 PM GMT+0300
Bloomberg

Kenya Railways Corp., the state- owned transport company, said it plans to build 12 new commuter- train stations in and around Nairobi, the capital.

Kenya Railways is building a 100-kilometer (62-mile) commuter rail line in the city at a cost of 16 billion shillings ($178 million), Managing Director Nduva Muli told reporters today. The stations, two of which will be completed by December, are the first to be constructed since 1935, he said.

“This project is aimed at decongesting the city,” Muli said during a tour of the first new station in Syokimau, about 15 kilometers south of Nairobi. The station will have the capacity to handle 20,000 passengers daily and will be linked to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Kenya Railways is upgrading the railway line between the Kenyan port of Mombasa and Kampala, Uganda’s capital, a project likely to be completed in 2017, Muli said.

It’s also studying plans for a line connecting the proposed port of Lamu on the Kenyan coast to Juba, the capital of newly independent South Sudan, and to Addis-Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, he said. According to a preliminary design by Japan Port Consultants, the railway line would cost $7.1 billion. It would take a year to find financing and could be completed by 2018, Muli said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Ombok in Nairobi at eombok@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Shaji Mathew at shajimathew@bloomberg.net