Kenya-Uganda railway: Tale of hopes deferred, estimates unfulfilled

By Mbugua Ngunjiri

RL Collins’ book, Kenya: The Evolution of Independence, is the latest addition to an already huge pool of literature about Kenya’s history.

It seeks to tell the history of how Kenya was conceived from the days of slavery to independence.

The author uses historical records to piece together the story of Kenya. It is from this book that we learn that when the British colonialists arrived on these shores, Kenya featured nowhere in their plans.

Their initial plan was to get to Uganda, while at the same time securing the source of the Nile River.

And that is how the idea of constructing the Kenya/Uganda Railway was conceived.

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Writes the author: “…That the railway created the economy of BEA/Kenya is well established, so that the formerly ill-regarded region ultimately became by far the richest and most economically advanced of East African mainland territories…”

Basically, what the book says is that the entity we now call Kenya was purely accidental. The book gives a most detailed account of the construction of the railway and the events that surrounded it; details that echo the shenanigans currently playing themselves out with the proposed construction of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR).

Then, like now, the Kenya/Uganda railway faced considerable challenges; there was an absence of consensus on the issue of cost.

Similar efforts

Just as the SGR is being compared with similar efforts constructed in other countries, so was the Kenya/Uganda railway.

An example: “There were misconceptions in England of the country traversed by the railway; and comparisons with railways elsewhere in Africa – for example, Sudan and Rhodesia – were ill-judged, for they had been considerably easier to build.”

Does that sound like the argument Transport CS Michael Kamau was making to support the project?

And what about this? On April 8, 1902, a certain Lord Cranborne stood in the House of Commons to defend the railway and uttered the following words: “Ultimately the line will prove a sound commercial proposition… the railway will be returning a handsome profit on working expenses and may enable the Government to pay back to the nation the original cost of construction.”

After that speech the book adds: “The usual suspects rehearsed “familiar arguments in attacking the concept of a railway as a misguided, wasteful enterprise.”

Well, if this sounds eerily familiar it is because history does sometimes repeat itself.

“From the first to the last, the story of the building of the Uganda railway was a tale of hopes deferred, of disappointment, of estimates unfulfilled, of coping with unpredicted and often unpredictable difficulties,” writes the author.

Also solidly covered in the book are events that surrounded the two world wars and their impact on Kenya and the East African region. From there the book tackles the rise of the Mau Mau, with varying levels of objectivity, and ends with the advent of independence.

The author must be commended for conducting painstaking research to compile this volume, and although some readers will disagree,  others violently, with some aspects of the book, it is nevertheless, a welcome addition to the body of knowledge on the subject of Kenya and will definitely form an important reference point for both students and scholars.

However, though the book is published, printed and bound in Britain, where standards are arguably high, the technical aspects of the book leave a lot to be desired.