International Railroad Discussion > Kenya's new "lunatic" railway line

This article talks about Kenya's new rialway line linking the coast with inland cities to facilitate more container train traffic.  However, it's coming with a high debt and environmental cost.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37493947

Great, now the elephant and rhino poachers can get the ivory out more effiently to China and SE Asia.....

"Offensive?"  Why are so many words that were once common place now "offensive."  If you don't like them, don't use them.  Wonder how long the line will last before it's run into the ground as is so typical of lines built in Africa. The Tarzar (sp?) line In Zambia and Tanzania being a prime example. Built to high standards but now third world railroading at it's best.

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> The Tarzar (sp?) line In Zambia and Tanzania

Tazara - Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority. Part of the problem with this, and other rail lines in third world countries, is that they require significant amounts of costly maintenance to maintain efficient operations. That is often simply not available, for a variety of reasons; fluctuating commodity prices which affect the amount of foreign exchange available to buy parts is a perrenial problem as is graft and corruption. I suspect the existing railway from Nairobi to Mombasa is perfectly able to meet Kenya's needs if arrears in maintenanace, both physical plant and equipment, could be made good and mainrtained. Sadly big projects such as this offer more opportunities for graft, and for the Chinese to extend their influence.

I read an article about 3 months ago, in The Economist I think, arguing that if Kenya was going to build a standard gauge railway it should have least specified track standards that would allow the railway to carry the heavy loads typically carried by, say, North American railroads. The article suggested the track standards would not accommodate double stack containers for example.

A higher loading gauge would cost more of course, but, according to the article, Kenya looks like ending up with a railroad with unnecessarily limited capacity.