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My wife and I lived in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania for over two years at the end of the 1960’s. In 1968 or 1969 (I can’t remember exactly which year) we travelled from Mombasa to Nairobi on the East African Railways in a sleeper compartment. I was 27 or 28 years old.
I have fond memories of that ride but, unfortunately, not many photos that I was able to recover and digitize. Here are two, along with a picture of the dhow harbor in Mombasa, not far from the rail terminus.
One of my clear memories is of lurching to a stop in the middle of the night and almost rolling out of my bed. Our sleeping car porter told us we had to wait for a herd of elephants to clear the track and, apparently, they were taking their jolly good time about it.
We might have been pulled by a steam locomotive, but it appears from my photo that it was one of the early diesels on that line. Here are two YouTube videos of steam and diesel locomotives on that line during the 1960’s. Unfortunately, they are not the best quality.
It would be nice to know if any other AU members have experienced East African Railways. They have quite a long history starting around the beginning of the 20th century.
My wife and I lived in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania for over two years at the end of the 1960’s. In 1968 or 1969 (I can’t remember exactly which year) we travelled from Mombasa to Nairobi on the East African Railways in a sleeper compartment. I was 27 or 28 years old.
I have fond memories of that ride but, unfortunately, not many photos that I was able to recover and digitize. Here are two, along with a picture of the dhow harbor in Mombasa, not far from the rail terminus.
One of my clear memories is of lurching to a stop in the middle of the night and almost rolling out of my bed. Our sleeping car porter told us we had to wait for a herd of elephants to clear the track and, apparently, they were taking their jolly good time about it.
We might have been pulled by a steam locomotive, but it appears from my photo that it was one of the early diesels on that line. Here are two YouTube videos of steam and diesel locomotives on that line during the 1960’s. Unfortunately, they are not the best quality.
It would be nice to know if any other AU members have experienced East African Railways. They have quite a long history starting around the beginning of the 20th century.
