Uganda Railway
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The Uganda Railway is a historical railway system linking the interiors of Uganda and Kenya to the Indian Ocean at Mombasa in Kenya.
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[edit] Origins
The Uganda Railway was built by the British Government under The Foreign Office during the period when Britain maintained colonial control of the region as British East Africa. Construction of the line started at the port city of Mombasa in 1896 and reached Kisumu, on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria, in 1901. Although almost all of the rail line was actually in the colony that would come to be known as Kenya, the original purpose of the project was to provide a modern transportation link to carry raw materials out of the Uganda colony and to carry manufactured British goods back in.
Construction was carried out principally by Indian laborers brought in from British India; many of these workers would remain in Africa to create the substantial Indian minority communities in Kenya and Uganda. The railway is metre gauge and virtually all single-track. The project cost around 5 million pounds to complete, and the first services started in 1903.
Despite being dubbed "the Lunatic Line" by its detractors, the railway was a huge logistical achievement and became strategically and economically vital for both Uganda and Kenya. It was used in the suppression of slavery and in the First World War campaign against General Paul Erich von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa, modern Tanzania. The railway allowed heavy equipment to be transported far inland with relative ease. Up until that time the main form of transport in the interior was ox-drawn wagon. The railway also allowed coffee and tea to be exported and encouraged colonial settlement and other types of commerce. In order to help pay down the costs of the project, the British government encouraged white settlers to farm large tracts of Kenyan highlands which the railway had made accessible; this policy would shape the development of Kenya for decades.
[edit] The Tsavo Incident
The events for which the construction of the railway may be most famous are the grisly killings of a number of construction workers in 1898, during the building of a bridge across the Tsavo River. Hunting principally at night, a pair of maneless male lions stalked and killed at least 28 Indian and African workers - although some accounts put the number of victims as high as 135.
The lions, dubbed "the Maneaters of Tsavo," were eventually shot and killed by the bridge construction supervisor, Egr. Lt. Colonel John Henry Patterson, who had their skins made into rugs before donating them, some years later, to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
[edit] The Railway and Tourism
As the only modern means of transport from the East African coast to the higher plateaus of the interior, a ride on the Uganda Railway became an essential overture to the safari adventures which grew in popularity in the first two decades of the 20th century. As a result, it usually featured prominently in the accounts written by travelers in British East Africa; the rail journey stirred many a romantic passage, like this one from former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who rode the line to start his world-famous safari in 1909:
| “ | "The railroad, the embodiment of the eager, masterful, materialistic civilization of today, was pushed through a region in which nature, both as regards wild man and wild beast, does not differ materially from what it was in Europe in the late Pleistocene."[1] | ” |
Passengers were invited to ride a platform on the prow of the locomotive (pictured at right) from which they might observe the passing game herds more closely. During Roosevelt's journey, he claimed that "on this, except at mealtime, I spent most of the hours of daylight."
[edit] Extensions and Branches
A disassembled ferry was transported to Kisumu by sea and rail where it was reassembled and used to provide a service to Port Bell and, later, other ports on Lake Victoria. A 7 mile / 10 km rail line between Port Bell and Kampala was the final link in the chain providing efficient transport between the Ugandan capital and the open sea, at Mombasa, over 900 miles / 1400 km away.
Branch lines were built to Thika in 1913, Lake Magadi in 1915, Kitale in 1926, Naro Moro in 1927, from Tororo to Soroti in 1929 and finally Mount Kenya in 1931. The mainline was extended from Nakuru towards Uganda reaching Kampala in 1931. Another went to Kasese in western Uganda in 1965. It was extended to Arua near the border with Zaire in 1964.
Idi Amin expelled all the Asian residents in Uganda in 1972. Many remain in Kenya and Tanzania although many others have moved to the United Kingdom and other countries of the Commonwealth of Nations.
The focusing effect of railway junctions and depots created many of the interior's modern towns and ports, such as:
- Eldoret, originally called "64" its distance, in miles, from the railhead at the time
- Jinja, a city and port close to the outlet of Lake Victoria, the source of the River Nile
- Kisumu, a city and port on Lake Victoria allowing ferry transport between Kenya, Tanganyika (modern Tanzania) and Uganda
- Kitale, a small farming community in the foothills of Mount Elgon
- Nairobi, started as a rail depot, becoming the capital of Kenya.
- Nakuru, where the main line splits, one branch going to Kisumu and the other to Uganda
- Port Bell, a rail-linked port, near to Kampala, on Lake Victoria allowing ferry transport between Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda
[edit] Ferry service
A related article on the Lake Victoria ferries details the transport of steel ferries from Europe at the beginning of the 1900s, in parts, and their construction on the shores of Lake Victoria.
[edit] Part of East African Railways Corporation
The Uganda railway became part of the East African Railways Corporation after WWI. In 1977 the original East African Community dissolved and each of its countries established its own national railway. The Kenyan part of the Uganda railway - EARC became the Kenya Railways Corporation, while the Ugandan part was transformed into the Uganda Railways Corporation (URC).
[edit] Uganda Railways Corporation
The state of the modern railway in Uganda is not as impressive as those early achievements. Only the 5 mile, 8 km line between Kampala and Port Bell and the 120 mile main line from Kampala to the Kenyan border at Tororo remain in use. In 1989, government soldiers massacred sixty civilians at Mukura railway station.
More recently the Uganda Railways have been joint recipients of the 2001 Worldaware Business Award for "assisting economic and social development through the provision of appropriate, sustainable and environmentally complementary transport infrastructure". The Uganda Railways Update Report gives details of management improvement.
[edit] Books and movies
- The Lunatic Express, sub-titled “An Entertainment in Imperialism,” by Charles Miller, published by Futura Books, 1977. An excellent description of the construction of the railway, prefaced by a very detailed background on the history of East Africa, Colonial politics and the "Scramble for Africa". Highly recommended for its depth, bibliography and very entertaining style.
Man-eating lions during the construction of the Uganda railway provide drama in:
- The Man-eaters of Tsavo, book by John Henry Patterson (1907)
- Bwana Devil, movie (1952)
- The Ghost and the Darkness, movie (1996)
- Beyond Mombasa, book by Frank Coates (2005)
The railway is seen in many scenes in the movie Out of Africa (1985).
- Railway Across Equator, a book by Mohamed Amin
- Permanent Way Vol 1, book by M F Hill, official history
[edit] See also
- Tanzania Railway Corporation
- Kenya Railways Corporation
- Transport in Kenya
- Transport in Uganda
- Lunatic Express
[edit] Notes
- ^ Roosevelt, Theodore, African Game Trails, Charles Scribners' Sons, 1909, page 2
[edit] External links
