This archive report was first published on 8 July 2020.
Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) is set to resume services on July 13, 2020, after a brief hiatus.
Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia announced the resumption of services on Wednesday, July 8, 2020, just a day after the Kenya Railways Cooperation hinted at a schedule for the Nairobi-Mombasa train.
According to Macharia, the first train will depart Nairobi at 8am and is expected to arrive at the Coast at 12:45pm. The same train will leave Mombasa at 1:25pm and is expected back in the capital at 6:40pm.
The schedule is designed to allow passengers to reach their destinations before the daily 9pm curfew.
However, the trains will operate at 50 percent capacity to maintain social and physical distancing. This means that the train will have 10 coaches, carrying a maximum of 600 passengers.
Additionally, one coach will be deployed to isolate passengers suspected to be infected with Covid-19 during the journey.
“An extra 11th coach will leave empty and we hope it will arrive in Mombasa empty because it will be used for only one purpose: to carry any suspected case of COVID-19 detected during the journey between Nairobi and Mombasa and vice versa,” said CS Macharia.
