Friday, March 29, 2024

Revived Nairobi-Nanyuki Railway to Have Passenger Restaurant Car

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The rehabilitated Nairobi-Nanyuki railway track will come with a restaurant car on passenger train.

The 240km ageing railway line was last used in the 1990s and is now being upgraded to revamp the economy of Central Kenya and ease pressure on the busy Nanyuki-Nairobi highway.

Besides passenger coaches, the trains will have cargo wagons to ferry agricultural produce and petroleum products among other goods.

On Wednesday, Petroleum principal secretary Andrew Kamau made a trip on the passenger train to inspect the line.

“Feels like the morning commute. A restaurant car is being refurbished and will be on the regular trip,” he posted on his social media page.

The meter-gauge railroad was first constructed by the colonial government in 1908 to facilitate commercial farming for the white settlers who had pitched tent in Laikipia.

With a revival, diesel engine trains will soon chug along the tracks, snaking through the highland region covered with tea and coffee plantations alongside livestock ranches.

This is, however, not the first the Kenyan government is attempting to breathe new life into the old railway.

In 2005, an attempt to resurrect the line for passenger transport from the capital Nairobi to Nanyuki flopped, after proving commercially and technically unsustainable.

The British army has a training unit in Nanyuki where thousands of soldiers conduct military exercises in the harsh terrain—British Army Training Unit in Kenya (Batuk).

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