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Fifty new wagons procured for the Madaraka Express SGR freight service will improve rail services and efficiency, Roads and Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has said.

He yesterday dispatched the first batch of the wagons that arrived in Mombasa in January. “A second shipment of 250 wagons was loaded at the Tianjin port in China in late January and is expected to arrive this month,” Murkomen added.

Twenty of the expected wagons will also have power plug-ins to enable the movement of refrigerated containers, a hitherto untapped business potential for SGR.

The refrigerated wagons, he said, will be a big boost to Kenya’s horticultural sector, enabling rail services to respond to the preferences of customers from around the world.

“Railway transport is a key enabler of the aspirations set out in our country’s long-term development blueprint, Vision 2030.” Murkomen said.

“My Ministry, therefore, will ensure we have the requisite human capital, operational assets and information systems that are geared towards achieving this goal,” he said.

This is the first-time new wagons have been added since the launch of SGR in May 2017.

The wagons, he said, are part of Kenya’s strategic response to market dynamics, and the need to meet the ever-changing demands of customers and gain a competitive edge in the region.

“To this end, we are in the final stages of also concluding a cold-chain logistics agreement with our partners,” the CS said.

Kenya’s rail transport network – the standard gauge railway (SGR) and the metre gauge railway (MGR) continues to register significant gains, Murkomen said. MGR’s cargo volume, for instance, rose by 21 per cent from 787,000 tonnes in 2022 to 1,000,955 in 2023.

Reforms and investment

At the same time, the volume of SGR cargo increased by seven per cent from 6,090,000 in 2022 to 6,533028 in 2023, while the number of SGR passengers increased by 12 per cent from 2,392,000 in 2022 to 2,727,727 in 2023.

“These numbers need to be sustained and boosted through more reforms and investment,” he said. “I have learnt that all the new wagons have a capacity of 70 tonnes or higher, enabling the movement of heavy containerised cargo.”

He added that this will help shift freight from Kenya’s roads and reduce damage to them caused by heavy trucks.

Kenya is also expecting 20 more SGR passenger coaches, he said. Of these, six will accommodate people with disabilities.

The new coaches will support growing demand for SGR passenger services that came about with the addition of a night train service and a stop in Voi, Murkomen said.

He added that the start of operations at the Naivasha Inland Container Depot and the completion of the second vessel, the MV Uhuru II, which has higher carrying capacity, also means that more, high-capacity wagons are needed.

Based on the projected growth of 30 per cent for the 2024/2025 fiscal year, he said, Kenya Railways procured 500 wagons, comprising 300 for SGR and 200 for MGR.

Meanwhile, the rehabilitation of the Kisumu port, he added, has revitalised lake transport and significantly contributed to growth of the Blue Economy in the region, while new cargo handling facilities at border points has streamlined containerised cargo evacuation.

Murkomen pledged to continue engaging Kenya’s regional counterparts as part of the government’s efforts to improve cross-border trade and seamless movement of cargo.

The CS was accompanied by Kenya Railways Managing Director Philip Mainga and his KPA counterpart Captain William Ruto.