High speed train right on track

Imagine travelling at 160km per hour... in a train!

The prospect of this dream becoming a reality in Kenya grew on Monday when Kenya Railways Corporation advertised a tender for a standard gauge line to run from Mombasa to Malaba.

Such a line would shorten the train journey from Nairobi to Mombasa from 10 to only three hours.

Prospective transaction advisers and design consultants have until January 15, 2010, to forward their bids.

Assignment

Their proposed assignment includes project marketing, investor identification and supporting selection of consultants to monitor detailed design, building and commissioning of the railway.

“Construction is scheduled to commence in May 2011,” the corporation’s managing director, Mr Nduva Muli, said in a two-page paid up advertisement.

The railway line, which will stretch from Mombasa to Malaba on the Kenya/Uganda border with a branch to Kisumu, would see double-decker passenger trains introduced in the region.

According to the government’s timetable, the Mombasa-Nairobi section of the line will be complete by 2013, Nairobi-Kisumu by 2016, and Nairobi-Malaba by 2016.

“The government recognised the need to build the new modern railway in order to increase capacity and improve efficiency, cost-effectiveness and competitiveness of the transport sector,” the advertisement says.

The move signals the government’s admission that the 25-year concession of the current Kenya-Uganda railway to Rift Valley Railways, a consortium led by South Africa’s Sheltam Ltd, in 2006 has not lived up to its expectations.

The concession to RVR is the subject of a court case after Kenya Railways Corporation expressed a desire to terminate the contract.

In this year’s budget, Sh3 billion was allocated to initiate the revamping of the over 100-year old railway system.