KAMPALA COMMUTER TRAINS NOW IN ‘TEST PHASE’
(Posted 05th February 2015)
Rift Valley Railways and the Kampala Capital City Authority are now in the final phase of carrying out tests before the formal launch of commuter trains from the outskirts into the city centre.
The passenger service will according to information received originate in Namanve, a new manufacturing and service hub created by the Uganda Investment Authority, and terminate at the main railway station in the heart of Kampala’s business district.
Stops enroute will allow additional passengers to board the train at Namboole, Kireka, Nakawa and Bugolobi, at a cost of 1.700 Uganda Shillings, way below the fare charged by passenger busses.
The test run yesterday took about one hour, also way less than what vehicles take from Namanve into the centre of Kampala during rush hour. Trains will operate from daybreak until dusk and from additional details obtained will the service officially launch in March this year. Additional routes are also planned once the initial service has taken root, connecting the line to and from Port Bell, Kampala’s lakeside harbour.
Rift Valley Railways has refurbished a number of passenger coaches and set aside locomotives to run the trains, able to do so after receiving more of the ordered 20 brand new GE locomotives the company is importing from the United States.
In a related development it was also learned that RVR believes to be on course to meet and beat all the performance target set for them by the governments of Kenya and Uganda for the uplift of cargo from the port of Mombasa to Nairobi and Kampala, following investments totaling nearly 300 million US Dollars in new locomotives, cargo monitoring and management systems and the introduction of more rolling stock into the fleet
