Upgrading rail transport cheaper than SGR but still beneficial

By definition, a standard gauge railway line is one which is 1,435 millimetres between the inside edges of the rail.

The advantage of a standard gauge railway line is that trains can move over long distances without unnecessary interruptions as a result of changes in the gauge of the railway line.

The time spent on the Nairobi-Mombasa route will be reduced from 10 hours to four hours. What determines the speed of a train? The railway line or the train itself? We could have upgraded our rail transport at a much lesser cost and still enjoyed the same benefits the standard gauge line will bring.

What if Uganda and Tanzania build a railway from Tanzania through Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi? Kenya might end up with two parallel railway lines that may not be of much benefit.