Uganda Railway (Mombasa–Kisumu)
Ferrocarril de Uganda (Mombasa–Kisumu)
- Date
- 1896-1901 · confidence high
- Place
- Mombasa, Kenya
- Credited to
- British administration and indentured Indian labourers
- Field
- Movement
What it is
A line of about 940 km between Mombasa and Lake Victoria, built between 1896 and 1901 with some 32,000 indentured Indian workers. Nicknamed the 'Lunatic Express', it opened the East African interior to trade and settlement.
More than 2,000 workers died during construction, some killed by the lions of Tsavo; the extension to Kampala was completed in 1931.
What it led to
- the founding of Nairobi as a railway depot (1899)
- plantation economy and white settlers in the Kenyan highlands
- a South Asian-origin community in East Africa