The Kenya Ports Authority has recorded another upsurge of standard gauge railway freight trains to Nairobi.
KPA managing director Daniel Manduku on Thursday said in July, an all-time high of 258 trains transported cargo to Nairobi, up from 221 trains in June.
"The month has ended with a new record performance of trains which were carrying 23,522 containers in the upward direction (Mombasa-Nairobi),” Manduku said.
He said the July target was 250 trains.
On July 31, KPA dispatched 13 SGR cargo trains carrying 1,178 containers to Nairobi, Manduku told the Star.
In January, they recorded 214 trains, February 172, March 184 while in April and May 203 trains transported cargo to Nairobi.
June's performance was the highest since the commencement of SGR freight services last year in January.
Last month, Manduku said for the first six months KPA had been doing an average of eight trains per day from the Mombasa port to the Inland Container Depot in Embakasi, Nairobi.
He said the authority's half-year report on cargo evacuation showed that 1,197 trains transported cargo to Nairobi.
In the first six months, KPA transported 2,019,002 metric tonnes of cargo.
“The performance is because of the 100 per cent efficiency at the port. We introduced the ex-hook railing where cargo destined for Nairobi is offloaded from the ship and loaded straight to the waiting cargo trains,” Manduku said last month.
He said in the ex-hook concept, the cargo is discharged directly from the vessel onto the SGR wagons to build a block train of 100 containers, which quickly departs.
“By the time the ship finishes to offload its cargo, half of it is already in Nairobi. This has helped us bring an end to the congestion experienced previously."
The total capacity of cargo transported in January this year was 365,876 metric tonnes, February 308,338 tonnes, March had 331,906 and April recorded 356,906 tonnes, according to the report.
In May, KPA recorded 319,957 tonnes and June 336,219 tonnes.
Last year, a total of 1,686 trains transported 2,918,973 metric tonnes of cargo to Nairobi.
“This year, we are performing very well. In the remaining six months we will surpass last year’s performance,” the MD said.
Edited by R.Wamochie
