The Uganda Railway (also knows at the Lunatic Express^[1]) is a historical railway system linking the interiors of Uganda and Kenya to the Indian Ocean at Mombasa in Kenya.

Near Mombasa, about 1899

[edit] Origins

The Uganda Railway was built by the British Government under the Foreign Office at the start of the period when Britain maintained colonial control of the region as British East Africa. Construction of the line started at the Kenyan port city of Mombasa in 1896 and reached Kisumu, on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria, in 1901. By 1931 it was extended to Kampala in Uganda. Although almost all of the rail line was actually in the colony that would come to be known as Kenya, the original purpose of the project was to provide a modern transportation link to carry raw materials out of the Uganda colony and to carry manufactured British goods back in.

Previously the British East Africa Company had started the Mackinnon-Sclater road, a 600mile/1000km ox cart track from Mombasa to Busia in Kenya, in 1890.^{[2] [3]}The railway followed a similar route and soon superseded it.

The railway is 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+³⁄₈ in) gauge^[4] and virtually all single-track. The project cost around 5 million pounds to complete, and the first services started in 1903.

Construction was carried out principally by Indian laborers brought in from British India; many of these workers would remain in Africa to create the substantial Indian minority communities in Kenya and Uganda.

Despite being dubbed the Lunatic Express by its detractors, the railway was a huge logistical achievement and became strategically and economically vital for both Uganda and Kenya. It was useful in the suppression of slavery, by removing the need for humans in the transport of goods, ^[5] and in the First World War campaign against General Paul Erich von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa, modern Tanzania. The railway allowed heavy equipment to be transported far inland with relative ease. Up until that time the main form of transport in the interior was ox-drawn wagon. The railway also allowed coffee and tea to be exported and encouraged colonial settlement and other types of commerce. In order to help pay for the project, the British government encouraged white settlers to farm large tracts of Kenyan highlands which the railway had made accessible; this policy would shape the development of Kenya for decades.

[edit] Lunatic Express

The nickname of Lunatic Express was first introduced in modern times as the title of a book by Charles Miller in 1971 (Macmillan) The Lunatic Express, sub-titled “An Entertainment in Imperialism,” it was also known as the “Lunatic Line” by the tabloids of the day, and The Iron Snake by the Africans. It was defended in the British Parliament by Sir Gerald Portal who felt all the right reasons were there, the need to ensure protection of the source of the Nile from Britain’s enemies, a great potential market for British goods, the huge traffic expected, and a revolutionary effect in settling the region.

Political resistance to this “gigantic folly” surfaced immediately, including the Liberals pronouncement that the Government had no right to drive a railway through country owned by the Maasai. And by what right did England have to assert mastery over thousands upon thousands of unlettered African tribesmen? Such arguments along with the claim that it would be a waste of taxpayers’ money were easily brushed aside by the Tories. After all if England were to step away from its manifest destiny, they would by default leave it to other nations to take up the work which England would be seen as “…too weak, too poor, and too cowardly to do ourselves.” Estimated at 3 million pounds in 1894 or $432 million in today’s currency, when the books were closed in 1902, the final cost was $793 million.

Due to the shaky looking wooden trestle bridges, enormous chasms, prohibitive cost, hostile tribes, men dropping by the hundreds from diseases, and man-eating lions pulling railway workers out of carriages at night, the name "Lunatic Express" certainly seemed to fit. However, an early traveler, Winston Churchill, said of it, “The British art of ‘muddling through,’ was here seen in one of its finest expositions. Through everything – through the forests, through the ravines, through troops of marauding lions, through famine, through war, through five years of excoriating Parliamentary debate, muddled and marched the railway.”

[edit] Kedong Massacre

The railway construction met local resistance on various occasions. A major incident was the Kedong Massacre, when the Maasai attacked a railway worker's caravan killing around 500 people after two Masai girls were raped. Englishman Andrew Dick led a counter-attack against them, but run out of ammunition and was speared to death by the Maasai ^[6]. At the turn of the century, the railway construction was disturbed by the resistance by Nandi people led by Koitalel Arap Samoei. He was killed in 1905 by Richard Meinertzhagen, finally ending the Nandi resistance ^[6].

[edit] The Tsavo Incident

The events for which the construction of the railway may be most famous are the grisly killings of a number of construction workers in 1898, during the building of a bridge across the Tsavo River. Hunting principally at night, a pair of maneless male lions stalked and killed at least 28 Indian and African workers - although some accounts put the number of victims as high as 135.

The lions, dubbed "the Maneaters of Tsavo," were eventually shot and killed by the bridge construction supervisor, Egr. Lt. Colonel John Henry Patterson, who had their skins made into rugs before selling them, some years later, to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for a sum of $5,000 US.

[edit] Extensions and Branches

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.

Branch lines were built to Thika in 1913, Lake Magadi in 1915, Kitale in 1926, Naro Moro in 1927, from Tororo to Soroti in 1929 and finally Mount Kenya in 1931. The mainline was extended from Nakuru towards Uganda reaching Kampala in 1931. Another went to Kasese in western Uganda in 1965. It was extended to Arua near the border with Zaire in 1964.

The focusing effect of railway junctions and depots created many of the interior's modern towns and ports, such as:

• Eldoret, originally called "64" its distance, in miles, from the railhead at the time
• Jinja, a city and port close to the outlet of Lake Victoria, the source of the River Nile
• Kisumu, a city and port on Lake Victoria allowing ferry transport between Kenya, Tanganyika (modern Tanzania) and Uganda
• Kitale, a small farming community in the foothills of Mount Elgon
• Nairobi, started as a rail depot, becoming the capital of Kenya.
• Nakuru, where the main line splits, one branch going to Kisumu and the other to Uganda
• Port Bell, a rail-linked port, near to Kampala, on Lake Victoria allowing ferry transport between Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda

[edit] Ferry service

A related article on the Lake Victoria ferries details the transport of steel ferries from Europe at the beginning of the 1900s, in parts, and their construction on the shores of Lake Victoria.

[edit] Part of East African Railways Corporation

The Uganda railway became part of the East African Railways Corporation after WWI. In 1977 the original East African Community dissolved and each of its countries established its own national railway. The Kenyan part of the Uganda railway - EARC became the Kenya Railways Corporation, while the Ugandan part was transformed into the Uganda Railways Corporation (URC).

[edit] Uganda Railways Corporation

The state of the modern railway in Uganda is not as impressive as those early achievements. Only the 5 mile (8 km) line between Kampala and Port Bell and the 120 mile (193 km) main line from Kampala to the Kenyan border at Tororo remain in use. In 1989, government soldiers massacred sixty civilians at Mukura railway station.

More recently the Uganda Railways have been joint recipients of the 2001 Worldaware Business Award for "assisting economic and social development through the provision of appropriate, sustainable and environmentally complementary transport infrastructure". The Uganda Railways Update Report gives details of management improvement.

[edit] The Railway and Tourism

Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (seated, at left) and friends mount the observation platform of the Uganda Railway

Reproduction poster of an advertisement for the railway.

As the only modern means of transport from the East African coast to the higher plateaus of the interior, a ride on the Uganda Railway became an essential overture to the safari adventures which grew in popularity in the first two decades of the 20th century. As a result, it usually featured prominently in the accounts written by travelers in British East Africa; the rail journey stirred many a romantic passage, like this one from former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who rode the line to start his world-famous safari in 1909:

Passengers were invited to ride a platform on the prow of the locomotive (pictured at right) from which they might observe the passing game herds more closely. During Roosevelt's journey, he claimed that "on this, except at mealtime, I spent most of the hours of daylight." The famous Indian reformer from Edalakudy Mr.Rahmania had visited the Ugandan railways as a part of his journey to East Africa.

[edit] Current situation

The railway is still in use today. The Kenya Railways Corporation runs passenger trains between Mombasa and Nairobi and has recently reopened the line between Nairobi and Kisumu near the Kenya-Uganda border. The train has not traveled to Kampala since the 1970s. It usually leaves in the evening and arrives the following morning after a journey of around 13 to 14 hours and the Kenya and Ugandan governments have signed a joint agreement to allow privatization of the line.

Most locals consider the Nairobi to Mombasa journey relatively safe for foreigners (in first and second class) but strongly advise against travel on the Nairobi to Kisumu line. The Kisumu line winds its way through Kibera, the (world's second largest slum) on the outskirts of Nairobi and is well known for violence and attacks.

In September, 2006, the World Bank approved the first grant ($70 mill.) to help the railway regain its position as a relevant and competitive mode of transport.

[edit] Books and movies

• Miller, Charles (January 1971). The Lunatic Express: An Entertainment in Imperialism. MacMillan Publishing Company. ISBN 9780025849402. . An excellent description of the construction of the railway, prefaced by a very detailed background on the history of East Africa, Colonial politics and the "Scramble for Africa". Highly recommended for its depth, bibliography and very entertaining style.

Man-eating lions during the construction of the Uganda railway provide drama in:

• The Man-eaters of Tsavo, book by John Henry Patterson (1907)
• Bwana Devil, movie (1952)
• The Ghost and the Darkness, movie (1996)
• Beyond Mombasa, book by Frank Coates (2005)

The railway is seen in many scenes in the movie Out of Africa (1985).

• Railway Across Equator, a book by Mohamed Amin
• "The Permanent Way" , a film based on the building of the railway fom Mombasa, through Kenya, to Uganda.
• Permanent Way Vol 1, book by M F Hill, official history

[edit] See also

• Tanzania Railway Corporation
• Kenya Railways Corporation
• Transport in Kenya
• Transport in Uganda
• MacKinnon-Sclater road

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Railways in Kenia

• History of the Uganda Railway