Kenya Railways on Wednesday, February 3, responded to commuters' complaints about the lack of train services along the Dagoretti route for two days.
In a statement, the corporation revealed that the train had derailed a few days ago but efforts were underway to repair it.
"Actually there was a train derailment at this particular line but our engineers and staff were working to sort out the issue," the agency disclosed.
The train plying the Kibera-Dagoretti-Kikuyu route has been grounded since February 1, 2021.
Notifying the commuters over the unavailability of the service at the time, KR explained the incident occurred due to unavoidable circumstances.
"The commuter train from Kikuyu to the Nairobi Central Railway station will not run tomorrow morning. We regret the inconvenience caused to our customers," the transport agency stated.
This is the second reported derailment incident by the Nairobi commuter trains in the past few weeks.
On January 15, passengers aboard one of the commuter trains heading to the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD) were stranded when the locomotive derailed while on transit.
The incident occurred when the wheels of the last coach of a train on the Athi River route went off the tracks forcing it to stop. Kenya railways acknowledged the incident noting that it had affected smooth operations of the train service.
"The Corporation wishes to inform all our commuters that the affected line has been restored and running of the trains has resumed," KR stated at the time.
Although many train derailments are minor, all of them result in a temporary disruption of operations of the railway system.
Usually, the derailment of a train can be caused by a collision with another object, an operational error, the mechanical failure of tracks, such as broken rails, or the mechanical failure of the wheels.
