Business owners can start to ferry cargo through the Standard Guage Railway beginning January 2018, Kenya Railways Corporation has said.

Speaking to the Star, Kenya Railways Corporation managing director Atanas Maina said the cargo freight, which has been operating on a trial basis since June, is now ready to be used on a commercial basis.

“The cargo freight has been operational since June and has seen the movement of 6,000 containers via 70 trains,” he said. “We are now letting importers and exporters know that SGR is operational for commercial use.”

Maina dismissed claims reported in part of media that there was need for construction of a new line to operate the cargo freight sighting that the SGR had been fashioned through loop-lines at each station to allow movement of multiple trains.

He added that the SGR has the capacity to handle at least 30 trains per day adding that of these, 13 cargo freight can be moved in a day.

Given that one cargo train has a capacity of 130 containers, this means that up to 1,690 containers can be moved per day.

This is more than 10 fold what the old meter gauge was able to transport from Mombasa to Nairobi in a day.

“The old meter gauge has been doing about 50-100 containers per day meaning the Nairobi Inland Container Depot has been highly underutilised,” Kenya Ports Authority principal corporate communications officer Haji Masemo told the Star.

The industrial area based depot, according to Masemo, had been handling an average 40,000 containers annually which is a far cry from its full capacity of 180,000 containers.

President Uhuru Kenyatta recently launched the upgraded Inland Container Depot to facilitate the SGR cargo services set to commence next month under the Northern Corridor Integrated Project in line with other Vision 2030 projects.

The enhanced depot has a capacity of 450,000 containers, further equipped with four SGR loop lines within the ICD, four rail-mounted cranes and eight rubber-tyred gantry cranes to assist in loading, offloading and movement of containers around the yard.

The inland container depot will also house a one-stop centre housing government agents involved in the cargo clearing process including Kenya Railways, Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Bureau of Standards and other regional customs officers.

Masemo said the Inland Container terminal is set to reduce congestion at the Mombasa port which has been a key logistical hurdle when it comes to import-export clearance, slowing down business.

“Up to 40 per cent of cargo cleared in Mombasa will now be done in Nairobi which will be a significant relief when you think about the current congestion at the coast,” he added.

The SGR cargo services will also provide traders time and cost relief.

The cost of transporting a 20-feet container to Nairobi on truck ranges from Sh65,000 to Sh80,000 depending on the weight of a cargo whereas the same fully loaded container will be transported for Sh49,500.

Maina said that SGR cargo services will also half the transportation time to range between 8-10 hours compared to 24 hours when moving cargo via truck.

Source: The Star

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