A half-year report by the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) indicated that the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) freight train had set a new all-time record.
The total of 221 freight trains between the port of Mombasa and Nairobi in the Month of June was a figure that was yet to be achieved ever since the trains maiden trip back in January 2018.
KPA Managing Director, Daniel Manduku, declared that 2,019,002 metric tonnes of cargo had been transported via the SGR freight trains between January and June 2019.
“The performance record at the port of Mombasa is because of the 100 per cent efficiency at the facility. We introduced the ex-hook railage, whereby cargo destined for Nairobi via the SGR is offloaded from the ship and loaded straight to the waiting cargo trains to the hinterland,” Manduku ascertained.
This revolutionary system ensured minimal time wastage at the port of entry as the cargo was directly loaded on to the carriers and ferried to the Inland Container Depot in Embakasi, Nairobi.
January had been the previous 2019 record holder with a total of 214 freight train trips to Nairobi, followed by April and May which both recorded 203 train trips. February and March had recorded relatively low numbers with 172 and 184 respectively.
The highly acclaimed ex-hook railage system was claimed to be so efficient that by the time a cargo ship is done off-loading its contents at the port of Mombasa, half of its cargo is already in Nairobi.
Manduku remained optimistic that 2019 would be a record-breaking year in which KPA expected to exceed the total of 1,686 cargo trains that travelled between Mombasa and Nairobi in 2018.
“This year we are performing very well. For the remaining six months, we will surpass last year’s performance,” he affirmed.
Interestingly, the report revealed that a total of 2,918,973 metric tonnes of cargo was transported to the Kenyan capital in the entirety of 2018 which is just 899,971 metric tonnes shy of the record achieved after just 6 months in 2019.
