Standard Gauge Railway: The Arithmetic Does Not Add Up.

There is an air of excitement and expectation at the prospect of a new era of transportation with the launch of the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway.

Like every foreign initiated mega-project imposed on an African nation the SGR has been shrouded in mystery and intrigue right from the start. Matters have not been helped by our collective quintessential ignorance and amnesia in as much as we all thought the SGR was going to be a high-speed rail that would allow a train to zip from Nairobi to Mombasa at the never-heard-of-before speeds of up to 400 km/h.