Cargo transportation on the Standard Gauge Railway is set to begin this December. [Photo/nation.co.ke]
Kenya Railways has announced plans to commence cargo operations on the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) line between Mombasa and Nairobi.
Corporation’s Managing Director Atanas Maina said that the freight services were set to commence this December.
''The rail phase where we have been ferrying small cargo such as maize, rice, and milk Maina said had come to a close adding that the SGR trains were now ready for the transport of cargo container.''
He further said that in the trial phase, they have been able to operate five trains daily laden with 108 twenty-foot equivalent containers between the port of Mombasa and the Inland Container Terminal in Nairobi.
Maina also announced that 1, 300 Kenyans and 550 Chinese expatriates have finished training and were rearing to operationalize the freight commercial services.
He said Kenya Railways had ordered for 1, 620 freight wagons and locomotives from China and has so far received 980 of them, and were able to begin commercial services without further delay.
The MD announced that once the freight trains were done with their maiden trips, the daily trains plying Mombasa and Nairobi would be raised to ten cargo trains per day.
Maina said the train freight services would not interfere with the SGR daily passenger trains plying the 472-kilometer route.
He said Kenya Railways, Kenya Ports Authority, the Kenya Revenue Authority and the China Road and Bridge Corporation have completed developing the standard operating procedure for the freight services and that they were now ‘good to go’.