Construction work on the 250 m bridge linking the port of Mombasa to the standard gauge railway Mombasa SGR terminus is complete an upgrade that will drop the use of trucks to feed goods from ships to the rail.
The bridge will connect with a 2.7 km rail extension from SGR terminus to shipping cargo dispatch bays.This will ease the use road trucks in what is expected to lower cost of transport and swiftly move goods on SGR.
According to China communication construction company, the 250 m radius bridge will be part of the 2.726 km SGR Port Relief Line that will cover 10 berths at the Mombasa Port which is currently connected to the SGR terminus via a road.
The move is aimed at facilitating easier movement of bulky and heavy goods such as clinker, steel, iron and cement into the SGR.The Kenya Port Authority have been offloading goods via cranes and transporting them via trucks to the SGR line.
The SGR freight service, started its operations December last. Since then it has struggled to find more customers despite rock bottom prices.The SGR freight service is currently charging freighters a flat fee of US $347.7 for a 20-foot container and US $397.4 for a 40-foot type from Mombasa to Embakasi Inland Container Depot (ICD). It also charges US $248.38 to transport a 20-foot container and US $298.06 for a 40-foot container from ICD to Mombasa.
New market price
Kenya Railways introduced a market price of US $640.83 for a 20 foot container and US $837.55 for a 40 –foot container in January and cut the fare followingthereducedtraffic.The move comes in the midst of a row with freighters who have defied a government directive to transport their imports via the standard gauge railway.
Also read: Expansion of SGR line to cover 10 berths at the Mombasa port
The bridge will therefore reduce the amount of time taken to offload goods, and upload them on the SGR for onward transportation once the entire project is complete.In order to ensure the construction quality of the girder construction, the project was equipped with experienced technical management personnel and girder construction personnel.
