East Africa goes back 45 years to find its great railway future... or is it all a dream?
A few years after the EAC collapsed, the great Kenyan-born British crooner Roger Whittaker sang a homage to the East African Railways and Harbours Corporation titled “The Good Old EAR&H”.
Photo credit: Illustration | Joseph Nyagah | Nation Media Group
East Africa has had its cup overflowing with railway news in recent weeks. In August, Tanzania President Samia Suluhu launched and took a ride on the new 460 kilometres Dar es Salaam to Dodoma railway line, and gushed about how it was “a pathway to our future…[and] will enhance our standing in the region".
The electric trains, the first of their kind in the region, are a part of Tanzania’s plan to build a 2,560km Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) envisaged to connect cities and link up with neighbours Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
