Kenya Railways managing director Atanas Maina. PHOTO | FILE
Kenya Railways has ordered 56 trains to operate on the standard gauge railway (SGR) ahead of the June 2017 completion of the Mombasa-Nairobi section.
Among the orders are eight shunting, five passenger and 43 cargo locomotives. A shunting locomotive is used in a train yard to move wagons around and assemble a train before a mainline locomotive takes over.
The rail firm has also ordered 1,620 freight wagons – a mixture of both boxed and flat. The trains will be delivered between December and March 2017.
The order adds to the list of Chinese companies that have benefited from the SGR project with the contractor building the rail also expected to bag the contract for running the line.
The cost of procuring the trains is part of the Sh327 billion contract issued to the project’s contractor, China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC).
“We have given the contractor approval to go ahead with the procurement. Currently we are inspecting three factories that will be used to make the trains,” Kenya Railways managing director Atanas Maina said.
Commencement of the SGR operations is expected to see reduced business for truckers and bus companies with the trains set to remove thousands of trucks and buses from the Mombasa- Nairobi road.
Kenya Railways said one train will haul 216 20-foot containers in a journey that is the equivalent of 108 trucks on the road.
This translates to a total of 4,644 trucks taken off the road if all the 43 freight trains are running.
The cargo trains procured allow for double-stacking of containers and will move at 80kph. The trains will be diesel- powered but can be upgraded to electric in future. A total of 40 coaches for the passenger trains are also expected to be purchased for use on the line.
“Each passenger train will have a capacity of 1,096 people with a designed speed of 120kph,” Kenya Railways said in a statement.
The government is set to sign a five-year contract with CRBC’s parent company, China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) to operate the line once it is completed.
Mr Maina said they are evaluating the proposal and could not reveal how much CCCC will be paid for the service or how much passengers will pay in fare.
“That (fare) is part of what we’ll talk about with the operator,” he added.
The SGR project has seven intermediate stations and 23 crossing stations which allow for trains to pass each other hence the operator can run many trains on the line.
By the end of last week, 272km (44.1 per cent) of the track had been laid with the contractor looking to finish the process by the end of the year. About 36 per cent of the works on the stations been completed.
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