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URC to open two more passenger train routes
Uganda Railways Corporation operates a passenger train service from Kampala to Namanve. Photo / Edgar R Batte
What you need to know:
- Apart from extending the Kampala-Namanve passenger train to Mukono, URC is working on opening up the Kampala-Portbell and Kampala-Kyengera passenger routes
Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) has started a feasibility study on two new passenger train routes to operate within the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area.
The study, funded by the African Development Bank to the tune of Shs896m, seek to find a viable way through which the Kampala-Kyengera passenger route, west of Kampala and Kampala-Portbell route, east of the capital, can be reconstructed.
URC also indicates that the Kampala-Namanve route is on track to be extended to Mukono, with works on 12 of the 15 crossings now completed.
While responding to Daily Monitor inquiries, Mr David Musoke, the URC acting managing director, said they had already on-boarded project management consultants, after which, URA will embark on a procurement process for required equipment.
“We expect the two to be up and running in two years. The budget for the construction and works for the Kampala-Kyengera , Kampala-Portbell, including a yard, is estimated at $40m (Shs148.7b),” he said.
In May, URC reopened the Kampala-Namanve passenger railway service, after it was closed in 2023 for renovation.
UCR currently operates four trips – two in the morning and two in the evening – between Kampala and Namanve at Shs2,000 per trip, with a daily average of 1,600 passengers.
However, the numbers are projected to increase to a daily average of 2,800 passengers with the extension of the Kampala-Namanve route to Mukono - to be completed at the end of this month.
The Kampala-Namanve route has several boarding stations in Kampala, Nakawa, Kireka, Namanve, Bweyogerere, and Namboole.
The extension will come with five new passenger wagons, which will make the number of wagons operating on the Kampala-Namanve-Mukono route, 10.
In May, URC said it was working on a plan through which it would restructure some of its yards to create park-and-ride hubs to allow passengers park their vehicles, travel on the train, and pick them up later.
URC expects to launch the Namanve-Mukono extension before the end of this year, which Mr Musoke said has been reconstructed with the entire slipper bed on the old line removed and replaced with concrete slippers.
He also indicated that whereas the Kampala-Kyengera route, under the funders’ project profile, stops at Kyengera , it is expected to go up to Bujuuko in Mpigi District, west of Kampala, noting that it would help to decongest the Kampala-Mityana road, as well as leveraging branch off traffic to the Uganda National Oil Company fuel depot.
Works under the Kampala-Kyengera route will include works on seven crossing lines, drainage channels, a yard and switches used to turn lanes.
URC has other railway routes that are purely for cargo, including Kampala-Mombasa, Kampala-Kisumu, Jinja Pier through Lake Victoria, and Kampala-Dar el Salaam via Port Bell over Lake Victoria.
In the last three years, government has heightened rehabilitation of a largely dilapidated railway network that has suffered years of neglect, low financing, and gross mismanagement.
In September last year, President Museveni commissioned Uganda’s first railway concrete slipper factory in Kawolo, Buikwe District, which government said would be key in promoting railway works in the country.
