Kenya Plans $210 Million Rail Upgrade as SGR Phases Delayed

  • Funds will go toward short link and upgrading older tracks
  • Government previously planned for new railway to reach Uganda

A train guard uses a megaphone to instruct rail travelers on a platform at Mombasa SGR Terminus station.

Photographer: Luis Tato/Bloomberg
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Kenya will spend $210 million on linking and upgrading older tracks with its new standard-gauge railway as it abandons a plan to extend the Chinese-funded project to Uganda’s border that would have created a faster export route to the Indian Ocean for landlocked neighbors.

Of the sum, $60 million will fund a 43-kilometer (26.7 mile) meter-gauge line that will act to connect the old and new railways, according to Transport and Infrastructure Secretary James Macharia.