SGR Passenger Train Madaraka Express Nets Sh1 Billion in 12 Months

Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) passenger train, Madaraka Express, which was launched by President Kenyatta in June last year has earned the government Sh1 billion in revenue in a span of one year.

Speaking on Wednesday, Kenya Railways Managing Director Atanas Maina said the passenger train has moved more than 1.3 million travellers between Nairobi and Mombasa since its launch.

“Since we started the trains have been full throughout the lowest recording being in the region of 85 % otherwise we’ve been at 100 percent occupancy,” said Kenya Railways Managing Director Atanas Maina.

Maina said the train made about 1,144  trips during the one year period between the two cities at a cost of Sh700 and Sh3000 for economy and first class respectively, the government raking in an estimated Sh1 billion in revenues in the process.

“Government policy was to first ensure that Kenyans can move as fast as possible safely efficiently for business and leisure so we don’t see ourselves increasing the fares over the next one year,” observed Atanas.

“The plans we are putting in place it to look at what we require in terms of additional capacity for coaches that should be ready in the next 12 months. Next is to bring in additional locomotives and coaches to provide additional trains service and in the next 24 months we will have taken care of this medium term plan,” said Atanas.

SGR railway between Mombasa and Nairobi was constructed at a cost of about Sh330 billion and was labelled the most expensive infrastructure in the history of the country.

The construction of second phase of the SGR project, which runs between Nairobi and Naivasha, is currently ongoing.