Nairobi News

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SGR roars back to business coming Monday


It is now official: The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) will resume services as from Monday, July 13, 2020, the government has said.

This comes just a day after the Kenya Railways Cooperation announced that it would soon give a schedule on how the train that operates between Nairobi and Mombasa will operate.

Transport CS James Macharia on Wednesday told the press that the first train will depart Nairobi at 8am and is expected to arrive at the Coast at 12:45pm.

He also said that the same train will leave Mombasa at 1:25pm and is expected back in the capital at 6:40pm.

He said that the time schedule is well suited for customers so that they can reach their destinations before the daily curfew which starts at 9pm.

The trains will be carrying 50 percent of the total capacity as a way of maintaining social and physical distancing.

This means that the train will have 10 coaches which will carry 600 passengers.

Additionally, one coach will be deployed to be used for isolation of 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.