Hey you, how have you been? I took a break from writing without warning, but I'm back with even more interesting stuff. I have been reading about trains and bullets lately.
So this month, 50 years ago Japan's bullet trains completed their first trip. The trains have reportedly moved 10 billion people, and caused 36 seconds of delay in the past 50 years. This just shows how efficient they are. In fact
Shinkansen as they are called, is a symbol of Japan's efficiency. I should add that only 20% of land in Japan is habitable. It follows that people live far away from work.The bullet trains are really helpful in commuting to work, Shinkansen is a saviour.It will however cost you $130 to buy a ticket. Read more on
The Atlantic.
Well, thanks to their great emperor,Emperor Meiji,Japan is a leading industrial hub in the world. Besides all the many environmental and geographical adversities they always refuse to go down. Here in Kenya? We uproot the already fantastic railway lines, will we ever own these bullets? Do we need?
After reading about the bullets I realized that I have never even boarded a train, let alone a "bullet". In fact I don't know how a train ticket looks like inside. What are trains for in Kenya anyway? Ignorance will destroy me. I decided to visit The Nairobi Railways Museum to "know stuff". To destroy ignorance. This is a place you really need to visit if you have never been there. Those like me who have never seen a typewriter, you will see it there.
One thing I love about Kenya is our deep rich history people. There is always something in anything around here. You will read about something which will lead you to know about another interesting thing. Believe me, you will not even think about ignoring. I will give you an example; I went to see old trains and in addition to that, I learnt that there were man-eating creatures of Tsavo.
I read that these man eaters used to kill and eat the Asians during the construction. Many people died, including someone called Charles George Henry Ryall and a servant called Abdallah. At least I read about those two.
Actually these man-eating creatures of Tsavo were lions. Lions which used to eat people,man. I asked myself the same question too. Don't lions eat people?I learnt that the railway construction brought a lot of things to this country of ours. It even brought us
Nyrobi, Nairobi today.
Nyrobi was used as base for supplies because of its cool weather and the topography was flat. That is how Nairobi came to existence.
I also learnt that it was during the railway construction that we had the first newspaper, it was called
The Standard. Founded by parsee migrant A.M Jevanjee in 1902 to cater for the Indian community which engaged in commercial activities in Mombasa. The newspaper is still in circulation today. We still continue using the same railway lines today, today, a century after.
While at the museum, I remembered how my grandma told me about her experiences traveling in the train, they used to call it
mugithi.
She told me many things but I was too young then I remember only too things; People used to seat looking at each other, I think staring is the better word. I mean what would you do in two day journey, look at each other? She also told me about the toilets, I will not say, go find out at The Nairobi Railways Museum. I will however say that it all ended in the seating basin to the ground.
I will acknowledge that it was not an easy task constructing. 2493 of the contract workers died in the process, meaning that each day four workers lost their lives, 38 workers for each month.
TEMBEAKENYA
Images courtesy of yours truly.
