Hellish ride on ‘The Lunatic Express’

• How a promotional train ride to western Kenya turned out to be a scary trip

No wonder they called it The Lunatic Express. What was meant to be a promotion fun trip for the development of local tourism in the western Kenya circuit turned out to be a nightmare.

The first leg of the tour by train for a group of journalists from various media houses was a delight.

The return trip was a nightmare; as a six-hour journey stretched to 26 hours.

Hundreds of passengers had to endure a hellish ride when the Rift Valley Railways train from Kisumu to Nairobi broke down twice — once in the middle of a forest.

Limped into Nairobi

The passengers waited in the train while replacement engines were brought in. A journey that started at 4am on Monday in Kisumu only ended on Tuesday morning when the locomotive limped into Nairobi.

The fiasco started at Kisumu when departure was delayed from 7pm on Sunday to 4am on Monday.

The first delay was caused by an accident involving an oil tanker and a train engine at a railway-crossing in Kisumu on Sunday evening. RVR technicians spent hours repairing the engine.

Although the railway officials assured travellers that the problem would be fixed in a few hours, that was not to be.

An hour gave way to another; hunger pangs started biting; the midnight cold set in, and both the children and the older passengers fought off sleep in the cold second and third class cabins.

Those strong enough braved the cold and the hunger by singing and listening to impromptu sermons.

The group of journalists on a domestic tourism promotion trip were lucky to have been booked in the comfort of the first class cabins, which had a room for each passenger, complete with a warm comfortable bed, a restaurant and toilets.

But a walk to the other sections of the train where “the masses” were, referred to as “wananchi class”, revealed stark contrasts.

It was cold; children slept uncomfortably on the seats; some women slept on lesos spread on the floor; and a strong stench of urine hung in the air.

“These people took our money yet they knew the train was not ready for the journey. I have been in this train since 3pm. Why only us? ” a passenger, who had seen us with a camera, complained.