The standard gauge railway will be linked to ten berths at the Port of Mombasa by the end of this year to boost cargo handling.
So far, 13 berths have been linked to SGR to handle cargo from the port to the inland container depot in Nairobi.With a capacity of 4,000 tonnes, the SGR carries twice the volumes ferried by the old meter gauge in a single trip.This is expected to further ease congestion at the Port of Mombasa whose capacity currently stands at 1.2 million TEUs.The new railway is expected to handle 22 million tonnes annually compared to the meter gauge which averaged 1.2 tonnes annually.As operations of the SGR commenced a week ago, linkage with all the berths is yet to be completed.There will be 43 trains operating on main line. With the storage capacity at the Port of Mombasa overwhelmed, the option is the inland container depot in Nairobi with capacity of 180,000TEUs.Along the corridor however, movement of cargo via road is expected to reduce and ease road maintenance budget.Kenya is banking on the new railway to increase exports which remain subdued at just 15% of the GDP.The government that hopes affordability, speed, efficiency and safety will bring more transporters on board of the new railway.