Kenya Railways adds more passenger coaches amid huge demand

Updated: August 16, 2019 Source: Xinhua News Agency
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Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) said Thursday it will add five passenger coaches to help meet the rising demand for the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) passenger service popularly known as Madaraka Express.

The company said the planned changes were expected to be effected from Aug. 19-22, noting that the additional coaches will be in the morning and afternoon return trips from Nairobi to Mombasa.

"Due to high demand for Madaraka Express tickets, we hereby announce an addition of five coaches from August 19-22, 2019 for the NRB-MSA morning train and the MSA-NRB afternoon train," KRC said in a statement issued in Nairobi.

In June, KRC increased the number of coaches from 11 to 16 on weekends. The train was then pulling 11 coaches (118 passengers) on economy class tickets and two (72 passengers) on the first class tickets.

KRC managing director Atanas Maina said the move was aimed at increasing revenue as the company also plans to improve the quality of transportation on the Nairobi commuter railway (NCR) service.

KRC intends to grow the number of monthly commuters from the current 300,000 passengers to more than 2 million in the next two years.

According to Africa Star, which operates the SGR service, Madaraka Express transported a total of 764,000 passengers in the first six months to June, despite the effects of the terror attack on a hotel in January, which caused a 10.1 percent drop in passenger traffic in January.

Editor: 王若寒