This tour takes you to the Kenya’s colonial built Railway station and its original Coaches and Locomotive Engines still preserved at the Railway Museum in Nairobi.

History of the Kenya Railway:

This small but charming museum could be said to encapsulate all that has been written about above, including the history of Kenya Itself. The first person to take view was one Sir Charles Eliot, a colonial administrator, a farmer and business who, in 1903 pronounced:-‘it is not an uncommon thing for a railway line to open up a country, but this line literally created a country’. The building was opened in 1974 b y the East Africa Railways Corporation, the then successor to the original Uganda Railways, and is nowadays owned and managed by Kenya Railways. It contains memorabilia and much else commemorating the first days of construction at Mombasa in May 1896 virtually to the present day.

Kenya Railway Museum

The museum is situated close to the centre of Nairobi and adjacent to the railway station. It is approached by a road that threads past many items of rolling stock that make up the permanent out door exhibition. Above the entrance to the main building is an antique clock and inside is a fascinating collection of maps, photographs, artifacts, models, contemporary posters furniture collection of maps, photographs, artifacts, models, contemporary posters and furniture. The principal items are annotated to assist the visitor and these include many examples of china, crockery and silverware of Uganda Railways (UR), Kenya Uganda Railways (KUR) East Africa Railways (EAR) and Kenya Railways(KR).

As befits the finest and heaviest steam locomotives ever built for a metre gauge railway, there is a scale model of a ‘59’ or ‘Mountain’ Class steam locomotives, 34 of which were supplied by the Beyer Garratt works in Manchester, England in 1955.

The first ‘5901’ naturally named ‘Mount Kenya’ is commemorated by its brass number and name plates taken from the engine upon its retirement in 1979. two examples of these superb machines remain:’5930’, ‘Mount Shengena’ is in the static display, while ‘5918’ ‘Mount Gelai’ has been restored to working order and is used occasionally hauling special trains on sections of the Mombasa line. Among the many other interesting items of memorabilia on display is a plaque commemorating KUR’s exhibit at the British Empire Exhibition in London in 1925 and the complete set of dining room furniture recovered from the German warship ‘S.M.S Konigsberg after it was sunk in the Rufiji delta south of Dar-es-salaam in 1914 early in the first World War by a British task force. Further on inside the museum is the ship’s compass binacle from ‘William Mckinnon’, first passenger steam ship to sail upon Lake Victoria after it had been transported in pieces from Mombasa in 1900.

The open-air static display of the Locomotives

Stepping outside you will see that each item on display is accompanied by a umber and a short description replicated in this booklet.

Exhibit 1: This is locomotive KUR‘EDI’ Class No.327 constructed in 1926,. It is painted in its KUR graphite colour and was used for shunting and branch line work until the mid – 1970’s.
Exhibit 2: ‘DL’ Class No.301 built for Tanganyika Railways in 1923 and used between Dar-er-salaam and Morogoro. Later it was used by East Africa Railways where it worked on branch lines in Uganda. Temporarily it was repainted in UR graphite and was used in the 1985 Robert Redford film ‘Out of Africa’.
Exhibit 3: This engine is an ‘EC 3’ Class Beyer-Garratt articulated type, No.87 named ‘Karamoja’. It was built in Manchester, England and worked heavy freight and passenger trains from its delivery in 1940 until the mid – 1970’s. it was the third Beyer-Garratt design supplied to KUR and with 4-8-4+4-8-4 wheel arrangement, the most powerful type until the mid – 1950’s.
Exhibit 4: EAR’s final design of steam locomotive was Tribal Class. Each locomotive took the name of a tribe in Kenya, Uganda, or Tanganyika. The ‘Tribals’ were designed and built in the 1950’s for a secondary line work all over the system. They were split into three slightly different designs, known as the 29, 30 and 31 Classes and this is a ‘29’Class 2921 ‘Masai of Kenya’ built in Glasgow in 1955 by the North British Locomotive Company.
Exhibit 5: This small engine, ‘Hugh F Marriot’ was used to shunt wagons at the Magadi Soda works until 1970. a 140km private line was built in 1913 to link the soda works to the main Uganda railway line and is still in use today.
Exhibit 6: ‘24’ Class No.2401 locomotive built by the Vulcan Foundry in England in 1923. this 4-8-0 design was perhaps the most successful in the history of the Uganda Railway. Although unspectacular in terms of design, no less than 62 were delivered and they were reliable performers for almost 60 years. A second example is preserved in the museum in graphite as Uganda Railway’s ‘EB’ class No.170.
Exhibit 7: This coach ,given the number 12, was built in 1899 as a first class coach. Its claim to fame (or notoriety) is that it was the coach from which an unfortunate Superintendent police, Charles Ryall was dragged while sleeping by a man-eating lion at Kima station some 80km from Nairobi in June 1900. this incident has been portrayed in book form (‘The Maneaters of Tsavo’) and also in film (The Ghost and the Darkness’)
Exhibit 8: Another ‘Tribal’, ‘31’ Class locomotive 3123 originally named “Bavuma”, built by the Vulcan Foundry in England in 1955.
Exhibit 9: A ‘55’ Class Beyer-Garratt locomotive No.5505, built in 1944 as a standard lightweight British war department design and originally delivered to Burma (present-day Myanmar), where it worked for two years before being transferred to Tanganyika Railways as ‘GD’ Class No.752. in , Tanganyika Railways as ‘GD’ Class No.752. in 1948, Tanganyika Railways and the Kenya Uganda Railway were amalgamated to from the East Africa Railways Corporation.
Exhibit 10: This ‘60’ or ‘Governor’ Class Beyer-Garratt articulated locomotive was designed to work lightweight and branch line trains throughout the system. All 29 originally carried names of British colonial governors; this example was No 6006 “Sir Harold Macmichael”, and was built by Franco-Beige of France in 1953.
Exhibit 11: The pride of the exhibition, the ‘59’ or’ Mountain’ Class locomotive was the ultimate development of steam traction in East Africa indeed was the most powerful metre-gauge locomotive ever built. Chief Mechanical Engineer H.W. Bulman had to solve a problem after the Second World War very large amounts of freight on offer, but limited line capacity to move it. He solved it by turning the design logic of the Beyer Garratt on its head. The articulated chassis to cope with sharp curves was retained, but instead of keeping the weight per axle as low as possible so the locomotive could go on any track(as with 60 class), Bulman asked for the largest and heaviest design that the main line track from Mombasa to Nairobi could withstand. The highly successful result was the 254 – ton giant, capable of moving 1200 ton trains from Mombasa to Nairobi. in all, 34 were built, all carrying named OF East Africa’s most imposing mountains. 5930 is named ‘Mount Shengena’. Since the journey lasted all day and night, two crews were used to man the huge trains, one working the engine while the other rested in a staff coach or ‘caboose. The ‘Mountains’ were introduced in 1955 and used until the early 1980s, when they were replaced by diesel-electric locomotives which haul lighter trains. Many Kenya Railways staff still miss the sheer pulling power of these locomotives, which made light work of freight congestion.
Exhibit 12: The museum possesses two further steam locomotives which have been restored to full working order by a team of retired Kenya Railways engineering staff. The locomotives are ’59’ Class No 5918 ‘Mount Gelai’ and ‘30’Class No.3020 ‘Nyaturu’. They are stored are stored at the Central Workshops and it is sometimes possible to view these locomotives by advance appointment please consult the Museum Curator.