One of the colonial loudmouths, Col Ewart Grogan, had dismissed the Uganda Railway, as it was known then, as “two ribbons of rust”. Kenya Railways was, in its dying days, badly run. It was a den of pilfers who sold railway houses, railway yards and millions of tonnes of steel as scrap metal. Hope Simpson raised the matter wondering why a new line was being built 10 miles from the Uganda Railway. That tells us that when railway systems are built to serve short-term interests — they hardly survive as commercial platforms.

Source: Daily Nation March 17, 2019 06:00 UTC