Why Uhuru should rethink new standard gauge railway plan

By Kiriro wa Ngugi

Kenya: Building a new standard gauge railway (SGR) line as proposed by the Jubilee government is a bad idea, likely driven by greed and corruption disguised as positive political hype.

There is a better more rational rail option which makes greater economic sense and saves Kenya a ton of money while creating a more sustainable growth capacity for the region. Our existing railway is a metre gauge; the physical distance between the inside of one rail to the inside of the other on the railway track is exactly one metre (1,000 mm).

It is the gauge used in the railway network of the EAC countries except the Tanzania-Zambia Railway (Tazara) line connecting Tanzania with Zambia which is 1,067 mm (Cape gauge). This metre gauge is also used in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Tunisia, Vietnam and Thailand, among other countries.

Nothing new

The standard gauge refers to a physical distance of 1,435 mm (4 ft 8.5 inches) between the inside of one rail to the inside of the other. It is mostly used in Central and Western Europe, USA, Canada, Morocco, Algeria and Japan (for high speed passenger railways).

The notion that the standard gauge is new or ‘modern’ is seriously misplaced. Legislation for its implementation in the USA was passed by Congress in 1864. This is 19th Century idea!

There are two main justifications for choosing the standard gauge. The first is to ensure railways are of the same gauge for better connectivity between neighbouring countries. In our case, the metre gauge already exists in the region thus it is the obvious first choice.

Wrong priorities

There are considerable costs of transferring freight across lines of different gauges (which is exactly what we are setting ourselves up for).

The proposed SGR is a separate new right of way from Mombasa to Nairobi only.

There is hardly talk of connectivity across Kenya, let alone across to neighbouring countries! The second justification for standard gauge is to realise the potential for higher speeds due to the increased stability offered by the wider footprint.

Virtually all high-speed passenger services operating today around the world are on the standard gauge, but in our circumstances, high speed passenger services are not on our list of priorities.

Our urgent primary objective is to move most cargo off our roads and onto our railways. Note that there is little benefit in running freight trains at speeds of over 60-80 kilometres per hour reliably. Freight tends to have a low value of time so nobody in the world moves freight at high speeds.

It should also be noted that passenger services the world over invariably do not pay for themselves and have to be subsidized by freight.

Furthermore, only electric trains (not diesel engines) can achieve the intended high speeds and it is estimated that we would need approximate 1700MW of electricity to serve the proposed SGR line.

But Kenya currently produces approximately 1600 MW of electricity. In other words, high speed trains are simply not feasible in Kenya. It turns out that, with no merit on regional connectivity nor potential for high speeds, there that is no justification for building a standard gauge railway.

However, the existing railway network is currently in poor condition and the investment required to return the infrastructure to good condition is significant. One misconception often promulgated is that you can carry more freight on SGR due to the potential for high axle loads and longer trains.

But the heavy duty Cape gauge railways in Queensland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the metre gauge railways in Brazil demonstrate that if a metre gauge track is built to a heavy duty standard, performance as good as a SG line is possible.

This is what Kenya needs to do; refurbish/upgrade our existing metre gauge railway.

If we refurbish/upgrade our existing railway to heavy duty standard, we can achieve axle loads in the order of 25 tonnes per axle and a maximum operating speed of 120kmph.

Parameters

Based on these assumptions, the estimated maximum carrying capacity of our network would be around 60 million tonnes per year; exactly the same performance parameters and outcomes the SGR is intended to achieve.

But the estimated investment cost per kilometre of track to implement the refurbish/upgrade option is in order of $0.49 million (about Sh40 million per kilometre, or a total cost of Sh20 billion for the Mombasa–Nairobi line).

Compare this to an estimated $3.2 million per kilometre (Sh276 million per kilometre) to do a new SGR. 

Why has the Jubilee government opted to spend 6.53 times more, to achieve the same performance outcomes? 

The writer is a consultant in public affairs and policy.