President Uhuru Kenyatta flags off a cargo train train in Mombasa. PHOTO | DPPS
Summary
- New service is expected to ease movement of goods between Nairobi and Mombasa.
- Road transporters also hope the development will see a drop in road accidents and congestion along highways.
- Kenya Railways will run freight trains with 54 double-stack flat wagons each, carrying 216 twenty foot containers each with a total load of 4,000 tonnes on each train.
Commercial operations of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR)
freight train service will begin on Tuesday after more than six months
of testing.
A Kenya Railways (KR) official said Monday
that after tests running since its launch last year, the corporation is
now satisfied the train will run smoothly and is ready to open the
service to cargo owners.
On May 31 last year, President
Uhuru Kenyatta flagged off a cargo train at the Mombasa port second
container terminal ahead of launch of the freight services.
The
trains have since hauled thousands of metric tonnes of grain including
maize imported through a subsidy window between May and September this
year.
Kenya Railways managing director Atanas Maina,
who was unavailable for comment as at the time of publishing, had
earlier indicated it would cost Sh50,000 to ferry a 20 foot container
from Mombasa port to the Nairobi Inland Container Depot (ICD).
The
State firm will run freight trains with 54 double-stack flat wagons
each, carrying 216 twenty foot containers each with a total load of
4,000 tonnes on each train.
For six months after the
launch of the service tomorrow, KR has been given a target of six
million tonnes to the Nairobi ICD which has been expanded from a
capacity of 180,000 teus (twenty-foot equivalent unit) to 450,000 teus
at a cost of Sh21 billion.
The 25-tonne axle flat wagons have a capacity to carry a payload
of 70 tonnes and will move at a speed of 80 kilometres per hour, taking
an average of eight hours between Mombasa and Nairobi.
This cuts the rail transport service to half the time the metre gauge trains took to transport goods between the two cities.
Fewer accidents
Transport stakeholders say the development will see a drop in road accidents and congestion along highways.
Fatal
accidents, especially along the Nakuru-Eldoret highway, have in the
past involved trucks ferrying cargo along the key route to Uganda.
However,
there are concerns that transporting goods by the SGR trains might not
be cheaper, with a section of stakeholders saying cargo owners will
spend between Sh15,000 and Sh20,000 on the last mile transport to
industries within Nairobi depending on the distance from ICD, meaning
the cumulative cost could hit Sh70,000 charged by road transporters.
“We
will also consider how other charges that accrue before cargo is
delivered to the customer will be handled,” Mr Maina said in an earlier
interview.
“But there are also other benefits that come
with the train service. There is reduction of time taken to transport
goods from Mombasa to Nairobi, decongesting of the roads, reduction of
carbon emissions and interconnectivity with enhanced development of
regional economy,” he added.
The Railway boss said they came up with the rates after deliberation with industry players before launching the service.
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