In a bid to contain and curb down the spread of Corona virus in Uganda, stringent measures such as lockdowns and bans on transport means among others were instigated by government.
This and more of the country’s transport means grounded with only cargo vehicles and permitted essential workers move freely on the roads. However, after recording lesser new Covid-19 cases in health facilities, the government went ahead and partially opened some of the functional sectors of the economy.
Following suit, the Uganda Railways Cooperation (URC) has also resumed passenger train services around the city.
Now, URC has resumed passenger train services plying the Namanve-Kampala and Kampala-Port Bell routes making five trips daily. The first trip starts in Namanve at 7 am arriving in Kampala at 7:45 am while the second coach leaves Kampala at 8 am to Portbell arriving in 25 minutes.
In the evening, another coach leaves Kampala at 4:30 pm and reaches Namanve at 5:15 pm. Another one leaves Kampala at 4:50 and reaches Portbell at 5:20 pm. At 5:20 pm, another coach sets off from Namanve to Kampala and arrives at 5:50 pm. During normal operations, the coaches make 10 trips, four between Namanve and Kampala and six between Kampala and Port bell.
Stephen Wakasenza, the Chief Commercial Officer at URC, says that they have been running trial sessions since Wednesday to be sure about the readiness of the coaches to resume operations and try out effective ways of ensuring compliance with the SOPs including physical distancing.
Last year, after the March lockdown URC delayed resuming passenger train services for more than four months for fear that passengers might not observe SOPs, which would turn it into a source of COVID-19 transmission. Charles Kateeba, the Managing Director of URC then told Uganda Radio Network that they had made an assessment and found that it was still very risky to open up.
Each Coach has a sitting and standing capacity of between 120 to 150 passengers but is currently allowed to take a maximum of 65 passengers. The inside of the train has been marked with numbers to guide passengers on where to sit or stand in observance of social distance.
Wakasenza says the corporation will be receiving four new locomotives soon and repair 10 other coaches to boost their fleet. There is also a proposal for the expansion of the train services to the Greater Kampala Metropolitan area. The Kampala Railway project is proposed to be developed on the 53-km Mukono-Kampala-Bujuuko plus an 8-km branch to Port Bell.
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