Kenya launches flagship standard gauge railway set to transform nation

Two female engine drivers gesture before the operations of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Mombasa, Kenya, on May 31, 2017. Kenya began operations on the Chinese-built Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) Wednesday. [Photo: Xinhua]
Chinese State Councilor Wang Yong, who attended the launching ceremony as the special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping, said the Mombasa-Nairobi railway has been an early fruit that came out of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in late 2015.
"The Mombasa-Nairobi SGR is an exemplary project of China-Africa cooperation on the construction of roads, railways, aviation networks and industrialization," Wang said, adding that the SGR will bear great significance in boosting the development in Kenya and the region, speeding up Africa's industrialization process, and expanding the reach of the Belt and Road to more African countries.
"China stands ready to work with Kenya to make the Mombasa-Nairobi railway become a railway of prosperity and development for Kenya, and a new example of the transformation and upgrade of China-Africa cooperation," said Wang.
The 3.8-billion-U.S.-dollar infrastructure project was constructed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation, with 90 percent of the funding coming from China.

 

I love world news. It's amazing how fast progress moves when you skip over the decades of war and get right down to business instead.
China is also planning to outsourse 100 million low tech manufacturing jobs to the African continent and start training their own citizens for the better paying higher tech jobs that will remain in China.
The global economy is here to stay, so if countries don't want to be left behind, they must tolerate cultural differences and be focused. There's always the oddball cult trying to throw a wrench in the works though.

 

I would like to see about a lashup of SD70AC Macs versus those things. Pretty engines, but don't seem to have the horses we have with ours.

 

They just built a train engine designed specifically for runs to Tibet where the air is thin.I laugh at people that say, "Free Tibet", when they know nothing about what's going on there; modern freeways, a couple of modern airports, high speed rail and the slower freight rail, massive job creation, free homes to the nomad sheep herders since the grasslands aren't what they used to be.

 

I am aware they advanced a passenger line at altitudes high enough to require either a pressurization to 6.5 differential outside atmosphere or 8000 feet or lower inside the passenger cars. It's pretty novel. In trucking we have nothing like that when crossing above say 10,000 or 12 or even 14000 etc. Excepting maybe two turbos to keep those engines fed that high.

Theoretically we can bridge Everest and pave it for highway use if you would pressurize the vehicles on it.

What does concern me is that Africa will become the next world power in 50 years time and require more of the goods and POL support that might not be availible if we fail to continue to develop our gas fields and try to become a creditor nation to the world with it.

 

Yes, that's probably the one; tourists need it. The locals have enlarged lungs to compensate for the low oxygen content due to thin air; evolution in play there.
There's an Apache woman living there. She's from a reservation in Arizona and needed a big change in her life, so she moved to Tibet and opened a small hostel. Been there several years and has no intention of returning to the USA. I don't see a problem with that at all, as long as she's happy.

 

5400 according to Federal Register has renounced and emigrated forever from the USA so far this year. It's a shame our taxes are so onerous along with reporting and banking problems imposed against any and all americans globally that has become a very attractive and profitable option for those who are dual national or expats able to live outside the states.

Most people can renounce and shield about 5.6 million in assets against the exit tax provided that their income and other assets are not included. It's about 35 to 40% depending on the assets. However it will be treated as if you sold your home the day prior to your renouncing. Thus the exit tax.

I consider myself a mountain man, for the joy of it. But I like it down here in the coastal range where the mean sea level is very low for my own purposes. People who are born and bred for mountain living have a advantage. If you took one down to the beach for example, they routinely experience a sort of drunk on oxygen type situation where it's more than sufficient for them.

 

Let's not get rosy eyed....

China is doing this for very selfish reasons... i.e. OIL.

Kenya has discovered oil (via canadian company) and the US was a little say "unhappy" for not getting a "shoe-in" in the deal, so they started sulking. Kenyan goverment then went to the next player in line who was not asking for a title to 50% of the country...and China responded.

Of course, all this "progress" is hedged on tapping the oil back to china...

I just hope it will not turn into the "curse of the black gold" like Nigeria

A final correction. There has never been "decades of war" in Kenya. Get your history right....lol

 

Decades of war wasn't referring to Kenya specifically, but to the African Continent and other places over the globe. China doesn't need Kenyan oil; they will get most of the Canadian oil sands that will be piped from Canada to Port Authur, Texas, then refined, then shipped to China. That's the main purpose for the XL Pipeline. Now China has signed deals to help Russia develop new off-shore oil fields and will share in the wealth. Exxon should have had those deals with Russia, but the sanctions stopped that, so now all that cash goes to China.