| The Lunatic Express |
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Construction of the famous line commenced at Mombasa in on May 30, 1896 and reached Kisumu, on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria, in 1901. However, the ride was not easy as challenges were encountered, one after another. From insufficient budgets to man-eating lions in the Tsavo, hostile communities, massive floods washed away the lines, termites feasted on the sleepers, sleeping sickness, a great number of workers fell ill mainly with malaria, amoebic dysentery, jungle sores and pneumonia. In Tsavo in particular, the Colonel in charge at Tsavo, J.H. Patterson, who shot the man-eaters (and later wrote the book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo) was told by the Indians minutes before they jumped on a train and ran away, "We will remain at Tsavo no longer for anything or anybody. We have come from India on an agreement to work for the Government, not to supply food for either lions or devils!" And although far removed from the European theatre of war during the First World War in 1914, further rail construction and improvement work ceased in the region, as British and German troops fought occasion set battles. The railway was a major target and the British military authorities had been given orders that all locomotives operating between Nakuru and Kisumu be concentrated in Nakuru, while those between Nairobi and Mombasa should remain in Nairobi. The German troops marshaled hit-and-run raids on the exposed parts of the Uganda Railways, planting mines and blowing up bridges. Had it not been for the large amount of military traffic, the railways would have suffered disastrous losses during the war years. However, this and many other challenges that were to be encountered by the engineers did not discourage them and they always sought for solutions. By the 1920s the railway could hardly sustain the high demands placed on it. Again, a solution was still found as the authorities decided to lay heavier rails on the main line. By 1931 it was extended to Uganda’s capital, Kampala. The original purpose of constructing the railway line was to provide a modern transportation link to carry raw materials out of the Uganda colony and to carry manufactured British goods back in. The engineers – together with his Sikh laborers brought in from British India - never knew that with every drop of blood, sweat and tears that was going into the construction, the railway they were hammering into the east of Africa would soon become a reliable masterpiece and a first-rate engineering feat of the region. The railways literally opened the East African region to the rest of the world, just like the Amazon opened up South America, or the Mississippi provided a way into the American west. It also presented opportunities that even saw many of the Sikh workers remain in Africa to create substantial Indian minority communities in Kenya and Uganda. The name, Lunatic Express emerged during the discussion of the project's proposal in England. A Member of Parliament stood up and referred to it as "The Lunatic Express," saying the idea was extravagant and ridiculous. However, despite this dubbing, the railway turned out to be a huge logistical achievement and became strategically and economically vital for both Uganda and Kenya. It has proved one of the most essential and durable railway systems in the world. It was useful in the suppression of slavery by removing the need for humans in the transport of goods, allowed heavy equipment to be transported far inland with relative ease, coffee and tea to be exported and encouraged settlements and other types of trade. Although a century later the Lunatic line that crossed the equator in the dawn of the 20th century and transformed the lives of many has been thrust into the background, it still retains its unique sense of romance and continues to serve many people living and traversing across the equator. Winston Churchill, an early traveler, said of the railway, “The British art of ‘muddling through,’ was here seen in one of its finest expositions. Through everything – through the forests, through the ravines, through troops of marauding lions, through famine, through war, through five years of excoriating Parliamentary debate, muddled and marched the railway.”  |
