A brief history of the Kenya - Uganda railway line.

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The Uganda Railway is a historical railway system linking the interiors of Uganda and Kenya to the Indian Ocean at Mombasa in Kenya.

The first operational railway in East Africa was a two foot gauge trolley line in the port of Mombasa operated by hand propelled wagons. The line started at the port city of Mombasa and by 1896 all was ready for a second attempt to build a railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria and the inaugural platelaying ceremony was performed on 30th May, 1896.

The Uganda Railway was constructed to metre gauge as this was already in common use in India which meant there was a ready source of locomotives and rolling stock. In addition, most of the labour, skilled and unskilled, was imported from India, many of whom remained after their contracts ended to become the nucleus of the Asian community in Kenya and Uganda. The working and living conditions were bad and many workers died through disease or attack by wild animals, a popular theme of films.

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After leaving Mombasa, the line had to cross the waterless Taru Plain, a slow job with every drop of fresh water having to be taken by train from Mombasa to the construction camps. By 1898 the line had reached the Tsavo river. At first the line was carried across the river by a temporary wooden trestle to allow the railhead to move on while a permanent bridge was built under the direction of Captain, later Lt. Colonel, J. H. Patterson. The construction was held up for several months by two man-eating lions, who attacked the camp and killed scores of African and Asian workers, before being eventually hunted down and shot by Patterson.

This was not the last time lions were to disrupt the line. In 1899, a road engineer by the name of O'Hara was dragged from his tent near Voi and killed. A year later, on 6th June 1900, at Kima station, Police Superintendent C. H. Ryall was sleeping in his observation saloon, number 13, when he was killed by a lion which entered the carriage and dragged the body through a window and off into the bush. Two other men in the saloon, Heubner a German trader who ran a store in Nairobi, and Parenti, an Italian merchant, had narrow escapes. The lion was eventually captured in a baited trap and shot.

By 1899 nearly 500 kms of track had been laid and the line had crossed the Athi plains and arrived at the foot of the Kenya Highlands. The railhead reached an area of swampy ground known by the Masai name of Nyrobi. Here a major depot was established to facilitate the construction of the line up into the highlands. The administrative offices were also moved here from Mombasa and homes built for the staff. This attracted an influx of Asian merchants to supply goods and services to the railway workforce. In addition, the Colonial Administration headquarters was moved from nearby Machakos, a settlement by-passed by the railway. In 1900 the spelling was changed to Nairobi and the future capital city was born.

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Midway between Nairobi and Lake Victoria was the great natural obstacle of the Rift Valley with its 450 m drop from the Highlands to the floor of the valley. In order to speed up construction an inclined railway was constructed down the steep sides of the rift. The steepest part of the incline descended for 210 m at a gradient of 50°. The inclines were cable operated with the main descent utilising two counterbalanced transporter wagons running on broad gauge tracks, each carrying one metre gauge wagon. Some of the brickwork for these inclines can still be seen. This enabled the railhead to be pushed on across the floor of the Rift Valley towards Lake Victoria while the permanent descent of the rift was still being constructed. The railway was originally intended to link directly with the Ugandan capital of Kampala and the route had already been surveyed. However political and economic pressure from a British Government that was never more than lukewarm about the project meant a quicker and cheaper alternative had to be found. A new route was surveyed from Nakuru to the nearest point on Lake Victoria on the Winam Gulf and the line built to there as an interim solution.

Railhead finally reached Lake Victoria, 930 km from Mombasa, on 19th Dec 1901 at a point called Port Florence, named after Florence Preston, wife of the chief foreman platelayer, Ronald O. Preston, who had accompanied her husband on his 5 year journey all the way from Mombasa. Mrs Preston was given the honour of driving home the last key at the waters edge. Port Florence was later renamed Kisumu. After the First World War a new main line was constructed from Nakuru on the original, more northerly, route around the head of the lake which eventually reached Kampala in 1931. A branch to the soda deposits at Lake Magadi was completed in 1915. The Nanyuki branch reached Thika in 1913, Naro Moro in 1927, and finally arrived on the foothills of Mount Kenya in 1931. The Solai and Kitale branches were completed in 1926 and the Kisumu line was extended to Butere in 1932.

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A disassembled ferry was transported to Kisumu by sea and rail where it was reassembled and used to provide a service to Port Bell and, later, other ports on Lake Victoria. A 7 mile / 10 km rail line between Port Bell and Kampala was the final link in the chain providing efficient transport between the Ugandan capital and the open sea, at Mombasa, over 900 miles / 1400 km away.

Running 576 miles northwest from Mombasa, the historic port on the Indian Ocean, through a semi-desert to highlands rising up to 10,000 ft. on the equator and down to the bed of the Great Rift Valley, before reaching Kisumu on the shores of Lake Victoria, the railway line opened up East Africa to the rest of the world. Five million pounds sterling, 43 stations, 1200 bridges, five years and countless lost lives later, the railway line was completed. Not only was it an amazing feat in railway construction history but also a long and hazardous task where every conceivable problem arose.