Rail Transport in East Africa - Uganda Railway, East African Railway Master Plan, East African Railways and Harbours Corporation (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The Uganda Railway (known colloquially as The Lunatic Express) is a historical railway system linking the interiors of Uganda and Kenya to the Indian Ocean at Mombasa in Kenya. Near Mombasa, about 1899 The Uganda Railway was built by the British Government under the Foreign Office at the start of the period when Britain maintained colonial control of the region as British East Africa. Construction of the line started at the Kenyan port city of Mombasa in 1896 and reached Kisumu, on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria, in 1901. By 1931 it was extended to Kampala in Uganda. 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. Previously the British East Africa Company had started the Mackinnon-Sclater road, a 600mile/1000km ox cart track from Mombasa to Busia in Kenya, in 1890. The railway followed a similar route and soon superseded it. The railway is in) gauge and virtually all single-track. The project cost around 5 million pounds to complete, and the first services started in 1903. Construction was carried out principally by Sikh 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. Despite being dubbed the Lunatic Express by its detractors, the railway was a huge logistical achievement and became strategically and economically vital for both Uganda and Kenya. It was useful in the suppression of slavery, by removing the need for humans in the transport of goods, and in the First World War campaign against General Pa... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=510121