Why SGR is a tiny part in China’s game plan to become superpower

The SGR is just but a small cog in this humongous wheel that will ensure the world's second largest economy is constantly fed with vital resources even as it deploys its excess exports and investments. China's "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) includes physical road, which takes one from China all the way through Europe to somewhere up north in Scandinavia - or the belt.PHOTO: COURTESY

Every nook and cranny of the sprawling industrial area in Nairobi was once fed by a labyrinthine of a railway network built by the British more than 100 years ago.

The artery of short branch lines, off the mainline that ran from Mombasa to the border town of Malaba, ensured thousands of local factories moved goods within and outside Nairobi with ease. Today, most of these lines have been abandoned and are now overgrown with bushes. With their usefulness gone, these transport capillaries now serve nothing but a stark reminder that once Kenya had an elaborate and efficient rail network aimed at serving Kenyans.