The train seems to have changed little since the old days of the Uganda
and Kenya Railway. The railway station and platforms are crowded with a
colourful mix of travellers, all of whom seem more interested in
adventure than appearances. Photo/FILE
Kenya’s history is tightly woven with
that of its railway, and today, as the country marks its
50-years-plus-one-day anniversary, these words by Sir Charles Eliot,
Commissioner of British East Africa between 1900 and 1904, ring oh so
true: “It is not uncommon for a country to create a railway,” Sir Eliot
said, “but this line actually created a country.”
He was speaking about the Kenya-Uganda railway, an engineering feat that today the region has a lot to thank for.
Its
every inch built excruciatingly by hand, the line is today regarded as
one of the greatest engineering projects of the last century for Kenya.
In 1896, the British decided to start building a railway line from Mombasa through Nairobi into Uganda.
Given
the state of the region at the time, both economically and politically,
this project was thought of as a mad experiment by its critics, earning
the tag ‘Lunatic Line’ due to the prohibitive cost, the tropical
diseases its builders would have to survive, the harsh terrain through
which it passed, the hordes of hostile tribes it had to appease, and,
most importantly, East Africa’s low significance and relatively
unpopular nature at the international marketplace.
Pursuing
this ‘lunatic goal’, then, looked like a particularly obstinate fool’s
errand. No one knew how it would pay for itself, or whether indeed it
could pay for itself.
It was considered political
folly, an eccentric exercise characteristic of the British at the time.
Little did its detractors know that the line would become a symbol of
imperial rule and feed the myth of the Brits’ noble self-appointed cause
of civilising the “dark continent”.
The train,
therefore, became a symbol of subjugation of the region, built primarily
to consolidate British ownership of the land around it.
The
British first set out to construct a road connecting Busia and Mombasa
at the dawn of the last century, but soon rail surpassed it in
importance, use and prominence.
They brought in George
Whitehouse as lead engineer for the project. George had been involved in
building railways across all five continents, but, despite his vast
experience, the unexplored East African country would provide him with
his toughest challenge yet.
MONOTONOUS SAVANNAH
There was a lot of fascinating terrain to cross between the shores of the Indian Ocean and those of Lake Victoria.
There was a lot of fascinating terrain to cross between the shores of the Indian Ocean and those of Lake Victoria.
There
were deserts to cross without dying of thirst, and you had to build
across a monotonous savannah filled with hostile animals.
There
were diseases like dysentery, malaria and ulcers to worry about. There
were foreigners and locals to manage, termites that kept eating up the
wooden crates... and the fact that all the material used had to be
shipped in by sea.
The labourers were all Indian
because they had a bit of familiarity with building railways, having
finished one back on the subcontinent.
It took about
32,000 of them to complete the line, beating significant opposition both
in Britain and locally to reach Port Florence, as Kisumu was then
known, in 1901.
While the line was called the Uganda
Railway — many have argued that the reason the British constructed it
was in order to secure their Ugandan interests, that Kenya was an
afterthought to provide access to the sea as Uganda was considered the
pearl — it became the lifeline on which Kenya sprout. For once, it
enabled settlement on the highlands and made the colony start paying for
itself.
The population of settlers boomed, administrators could move with ease and produce could now find its way to the port.
Having a railway reduced need for human portage of goods, helping stop the slavery that the British were now preaching against.
It
also helped the agriculture sector as huge pieces of equipment could
now be moved to the highlands with relative ease, and resulted in the
setting up of infrastructure for international trade in coffee and tea,
which went a long way in ensuring the colony could pay for itself.
The
railway also chose a new capital for the country, according to Elspeth
Huxley, a British woman who grew up in Thika after her parents arrived
in the colony in 1912, and author of a number of books on the history of
the nation, including The Flame Trees of Thika and The Mottled Lizard.
The
land on which the capital now stands was a sodden, insanitary swamp
with poor drainage before the Indian coolies hammered their way into it.
It picked up from then and has been purring ever since, outliving its benefactor.
But Nairobi still retains splashes of its railway history.
Though
now a modern metropolis, its very first planner was a railway engineer
called John Patterson, better known for having killed the man-eaters of
Tsavo. Also, the original governors of the capital were railway men, and
the imposing railway headquarters still stand strong.
LINE STARTS LOSING ITS LUSTRE
A few years after independence, however, the line started losing its lustre as competition from road networks ate into its revenue.
A few years after independence, however, the line started losing its lustre as competition from road networks ate into its revenue.
As we entered the ’90s, travelling by rail was more of a flight of fancy for the nostalgic than a normal commuter service.
The
sheer expanse of Kenya when viewed from the train, the tardiness of the
railways, the speed of our trains and the cost as compared to road made
many reconsider the service, and for years the carriages have been
chugging on nothing more that mere sentiment.
Corruption,
mismanagement and outright looting have ensured that the railways have
slowly lost out to the roads. It is the train that began to haul Kenya
into the 20th century, but the road took over.
Road has
won in the quest to haul goods in Kenya. The roads are slow, congested
and narrow, but they are still more preferable to rail.
The
victory is complete and unquestioned. The Kenya National Bureau of
Statistics, for instance, reports that the pipelines ferried more oil in
2012 than the railways did cargo. Road, meanwhile, did more times the
business rail did. Even aeroplanes flew more freight cargo than our
railways.
A RANK ABOVE BARE FEET
The
line the British built all those years ago, the ‘lunatic’ piece of
engineering that gave birth to a lot of the goodies that the nation
enjoys today, is now perhaps only a rank above bare feet when it comes
to moving goods across the country.
Even more worrying
is the fact that, year on year, the amount of freight being distributed
via rail is falling while all its other competitors are going up.
Railways are now the least likely choice of haulage when it comes to
goods despite them being suited for it.
But there is
hope. Last year the government broke the century-old moratorium on
railway construction by commissioning an additional two kilometres of
track for the Syokimau terminus.
A year later and
President Uhuru Kenyatta has kicked off construction of the first
standard-gauge railway in the region, which promises to carry more cargo
and cover distances faster.
The Sh1.2 trillion line
has guarantees in place to ensure that cargo will always be transported
via rail and Kenya and the carriages will keep chugging along. It is apt
that levies on road users will pay the new railway.
A
hundred years ago all cars were transported from Mombasa to Nairobi via
rail. It seems right that the road repays its predecessor. With cargo
being allotted to the new rail network, Kenya, it seems, is destined
once more to be railway country.
Some towns’ fortunes
have waxed and waned with that of the trains. Similarly, some towns that
have sprung up to cater to long haul drivers may wilt as more and more
cargo is sent to the rails.
Where once it took you 40
hours to get to Nairobi in the age of steam, the new trains will do the
journey in four. The current diesel engines manage the distance in 12
hours.
And so the dream of the ‘lunatics’ is once again
revived. As Kenya celebrates 50 years of uhuru, it seems that it is
also retracing its steps.
The new, modern lines today carry the same hopes and aspirations the region conferred upon the ‘Lunatic Line’.
The
train seems to have changed little since the old days of the Uganda and
Kenya Railway. The railway station and platforms are crowded with a
colourful mix of travellers, all of whom seem more interested in
adventure than appearances.
The train corridors are still brutally narrow. In those early days, passengers had to disembark for a meal.
Today,
there is a dining car on the Kenya Railway train. It’s hardly the
height of elegance, though the tablecloths are starched white and there
are flowers on every table.
But the sensible
brown-striped Kenya Railway china is cracked and chipped and the six or
seven dining car waiters have permanent yellow stains on their laundered
white jackets.
As on any train, the dining car is the best place to be, but on this one a dimension of intimacy is added by crowding strangers together to make use of all space and hurrying them through dinner to accommodate multiple sittings.
— Linda Watanabe McFerrin, writing in Aboard the Lunatic Express (2007)
THE LUNATIC EXPRESS: POEM
Aboard the Lunatic Express
What it will cost no words can express;
What is its object no brain can suppose;
Where it will start from no one can guess;
Where it is going nobody knows;
What is the use of it none can conjecture;
What it will carry there’s none can define;
And in spite of George Curzon’s superior lecture,
It clearly is naught but a lunatic line.
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