![\"Map](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/EB43\/production\/_96272206_african_railway_624map.jpg\")
<\/p>\nKenya has opened a major new railway between the port city of Mombasa and the capital, Nairobi, 18 months early.<\/p>\n
The $3.2bn (\u00a32.5bn) Chinese-funded line is the country’s biggest infrastructure project since independence.<\/p>\n
It took three-and-a-half years to build, using Chinese track-laying technology.<\/p>\n
The line is supposed to eventually connect South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi with Mombasa.<\/p>\n
It is the country’s first new major railway in more than a century.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The journey from Mombasa to Nairobi by train will now take four-and-a-half hours, compared to nine hours by bus or 12 hours on the previous railway.<\/p>\n
The tickets work out cheaper than buses.<\/p>\n
An economy class ticket will cost 900 Kenyan shillings ($9; \u00a37), while a business class ticket will be 3,000 Kenyan shillings. The nearest equivalent bus is ticket is an extra 400 shillings.<\/p>\n
President Uhuru Kenyatta said at the launch of the railway line that it signalled a new chapter in Kenya’s history:<\/p>\n
“A history that was first started 122 years ago when the British, who had colonised this nation, kicked off the train to nowhere… it was then dubbed the ‘Lunatic Express’.”<\/p>\n
“Today… despite again a lot of criticism we now celebrate not the ‘Lunatic Express’ but the Madaraka [named after the day Kenya’s attained internal self-rule) Express that would begin to reshape the story of Kenya for the next 100 years.”<\/p>\n
The cost of the project has been criticised by opposition parties, who say it is too expensive and the economic returns exaggerated.<\/p>\n
They have also accused President Kenyatta’s administration of unchecked borrowing from China.<\/p>\n
The government says that it needs to invest in infrastructure to attract foreign investment.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kenya has opened a major new railway between the port city of Mombasa and the capital, Nairobi, 18 months early. The $3.2bn (\u00a32.5bn) Chinese-funded line is the country’s biggest infrastructure project since independence. It took three-and-a-half years to build, using Chinese track-laying technology. The line is supposed to eventually connect South Sudan, Democratic Republic of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[7618,7619,766],"class_list":["post-324028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-east-africa-railway-project","tag-kenya-railway","tag-uhuru-kenyatta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=324028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=324028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=324028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=324028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}