The planned $40 million project envisions a high speed bullet train that will be double decked and will use modern technology, the first of its kind on the continent.

The KRC project will see a shorter train journey from Nairobi to Mombasa reduced from 10 hours to three.

Bidders have ben given up to January 15, 2010, to bring in their bids and construction has been set to begin thereafter in May 2011.

KRC anticipates that the Mombasa-Nairobi line will be completed in 2013 and the Nairobi-Malaba line in 2016.

The bullet train expected to run at speed of 160 kilometres per hour, will revolutionise transport in the region but specifically the railway sector.

 The Lunatic Express was the name given to a railroad built by the British colonial government in East Africa during Victorian times. Officially called the Uganda Railway, it was constructed over the period 1895-1901 from Mombasa on the Kenyan coast to Lake Victoria in the interior and later onward to Kampala in Uganda.

Since independence times, that railway has suffered grossly, to the extent that it has collapsed in some areas much of the network in Uganda.

The railway which was later given to private concessionares, Rift Valley Railways (RVR), has been ground to a slow punt  leaving it a relic of what it really was at the time of its construction.

If a colonial government with very archaic technology could build a railway network with buckets and exported labour from India (and make meaningful business as early as 1895), why can’t we with our engineers and modern technology and expertise build a modern rail infrastructure today?

The answer is leadership. We need to transform our collective mindsets and build a modern infrastructure that will be the answer to our heavy costs of doing business.

The move by KRC should be done expeditiously and professionally together with other EAC members so that it makes life in the region worth the living.