On Monday, Kenya will mark four years since the China-built Standard Gauge Railway began operations. Afristar is the company that runs the SGR, and staff say the train services have changed how goods and people move. CGTN’s Enock Sikolia caught up with employees who have worked with the SGR since the beginning.

For several years now these beams and columns of the standard gauge railways have shaped the landscape of Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa. And for the four years that trains have been moving atop the rail, the country’s transport sector has really changed and no one understands these changes more than men and women who work hard to ensure its success.

David Kimani, Locomotive Driver, Afristar: “I have been with Afristar for the last four and half years. I am a locomotive driver by profession.

“My journey with Afristar and working in the railway industry began in 2017 where I enrolled for training at the railway training institute at Kenya Railways. I studied as a train crew and upon completion I joined CRBC to work as a train crew,” says Harrison Kinyanjui, Assistant Superintendent, Afristar.

“I have gone through that process of being an assistant driver and now I am a qualified locomotive driver. The first time I did drive a locomotive was in 2017. That was from Mombasa to Nairobi. Then I began driving the shunting locomotives. That’s when I became the team leader for the shunting team,” Kimani adds.

“My team and I are the ones that command the trains straight from the departure station, all across the stations. We command in terms of what train will depart; at what time will a train depart; will go and stop at what station. Stop particularly in what truck; stop for how long then depart at what time; excuse which train to pass; why should we excuse this train? So we are the brain that does the train operation command,” submits Kinyanjui.

“My name is Titus Kiprop. I am the deputy superintendent of the truck and signal department. When I see containers being loaded and transported to Mombasa and they are shipped, I feel so proud because this is the line I do maintains on each and every day…and I am really happy because if the line had not maintained as is supposed to be, because this process going on here, would not have happened,” says Titus Kiprop, the Deputy Superintendent truck and signal department.

They both agree that SGR has impacted society in a positive way.