(Posted 25th March 2026)
Presidenta William Ruto and Yoweri Museveni, presided over the groundbreaking ceremony in Kisumu East Sub-County last weekend, realizing a long-awaited breakthrough to promote and enhance trade, freight, and passenger transport between the two countries.
The expansion of the line will promote a more integrated regional transportation network, improving connectivity across the region, primarily to Uganda but also to hinterland countries. .
The Naivasha–Kisumu main line will span approximately 264 km, with an additional 8.69 km spur linking the railway to the proposed new Kisumu port.
The Kisumu–Malaba segment will add another 107 km, creating a continuous rail corridor from the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa to the Uganda border, from where Uganda’s own SGR line to Kampala is already under construction.
Freight trains will have a haulage capacity of up to 4,000 tonnes (216 TEUS) with a designed speed of 80 kilometres per hour while passenger trains will have a capacity of up to 1,096 passengers with a designed speed of 120 kilometres per hour.
Expected benefits of the railway linkage between Kenya and Uganda include:
- Reduced freight transport costs from the port of Mombasa to Uganda and beyond
- Faster and safer movement of goods and passengers
- Increased trade competitiveness
- The project will stimulate economic growth and investment along the corridor.
Only recently did ATCNews report about plans by Uganda to also link the country to the SGR network in Tanzania to create redundancy and safeguard access to the Indian Ocean:
Uganda’s government considering a railway link with Tanzania
