1-2-3 Train With Me (Formerly Titled Mombasa to Nairobi – A Journey to Remember)

As promised, a summary of the train ride from Mombasa to Nairobi.  As background information you should know that this train first ran in either the late 50s or early 60s and that nothing on this train has really changed since that time apart from the gradual decay that one would expect over a period of 50+ years.  Travel is overnight, with the train scheduled to leave the station around 7PM and arrive at its destination mid morning the next day.  You should also know that prior to our departure we heard rumours of thieves lying in wait on the top of cars and slipping in through your windows at night, of delays for track or train maintenance in the middle of the night that could last hours, and of the occasional derailment.  And you should know that we didn’t tell much of this to our parents or sister until now.

An experience like this is hard to capture but I’ll attempt it with a few descriptive snapshots:

Mombasa Station:           Actually not the station itself, which was pretty non-descript, but the little green space we went through on the way in, with a sign announcing “Proudly brought to you by Kenya Railways.”  Everyone is probably thinking this was a nice gesture on the part of Kenya Railways.  Every big city needs a bit of green space available for public use.  Unfortunately this green space looked like it had been established around the same time the trains were purchased and with no maintenance since that date.  It was surrounded by rusty barbed wire and the centerpiece was a concrete and steel fountain which had seen better days.  Any metal pieces still in place looked on the verge of disintegration and no sign of water except for some stagnant pools in the bottom of the fountain growing a few different hues of green algae and providing a perfect breeding ground for friendly neighbourhood malaria bearing mosquitoes.

The Sleeping Car:            There are three classes of tickets.  We were also told during our research period not to consider purchasing anything but first class tickets – sound advice.  At each station along the way we watched crowds of people boarding the third class cars.  If you think our experience was an adventure, imagine a standing room only third class car for a few hours or more.  Back to our luxury first class sleeper, berths were arranged for double occupancy with a door between each pair of rooms that could be opened up.  Kaitlyn, Emily and I shared a four berth room.  Beds were bunk bed style, one on top of the other and covered in vinyl, which was cracked in many places and completely missing in others.  With some patience water did arrive at the small metal sink, but not from the separate drinking water spout above it.  An old metal fan in the corner of each room gave us hope of some relief from the heat, but alas none worked.  The door between our room and Emily’s was jammed open, so thankfully we knew each other.  This was preferred to the situation of some of our neighbours who were asking around for screwdrivers, knives, sledgehammers or any other tool that might be used to get their door to the public hallway closed.  Blankets arrived from a porter who threw two big canvas sacks into the room.  They were army surplus including, inexplicably, a pair of heavy wool blankets.  Temperatures on the train at that point low thirties with 100% humidity (I checked my handy pocket barometer).  The porter did return shortly thereafter to fit the sheets and blankets on to our beds, this being a first class berth.  The light in each room had three settings, Off, Incandescent and Fluorescent.  While in the station all three settings were working well for us, but the Fluorescent and Incandescent options seemed to cut out anytime the train was at full speed.  Meanwhile over in Emily’s room, the Fluorescent didn’t seem to work at all, but her other two settings seemed to be Bright Incandescent or Dim Incandescent.  I guess Off might have been an option if she had borrowed the sledge hammer…but she was a real trooper and found a way to sleep in the gentle golden light that only an incandescent can provide.  One final note on the Sleeping Cars:  Sleeping was a real challenge.  This was because:

a)      It was really hot

b)      The click-clack of wheels on steel rail lines was romantic for a couple hours and then just noisy

c)       The train stopped periodically at stations, and with each re-start there was a loud bang that proceeded from the locomotive down to the caboose as the slack in the connecting joint between each car was removed abruptly

d)      Our car seemed to have about 10cm in vertical variation and about 10 degrees in tilt to either side as it bounced along the track (hence the derailments)

The Dining Car:                 We arrived in the dining car for the “early” sitting at somewhere around 8:30pm.  There were rumours of proper silverware and china place settings.  I’ll admit I’m neither cultured enough nor attentive enough to give a definite answer on the silverware (Mom can you help out here?) but the china had been replaced with good, solid, unbreakable, melamine type dinnerware.  To a practical fellow such as myself this just makes sense, given that this car was moving around with similar parameters to those described with regard to the sleeping car above.  What doesn’t make sense is continuing to attempt serving soup, yet serve soup they did, and we ate it without dumping any on our laps (Hot soup also didn’t make much sense to my sister, who in addition to dealing with the weather related heat, was also carrying around a pretty bad sunburn all down her back from a snorkeling expedition earlier that day).

 The dining car seemed to have the same three lighting options as the sleeping cars, except that even while moving the fluorescents were working well, keeping us fully lit.  There was a row of old metal fans running down the centre of the ceiling and 75% of them, including the 4 nearest to our table (we arrived early, and alert to our surroundings) were whirring around in slow circles.  A nice breeze was coming in from the screened windows.  This was bordering on real first class travel…for about three minutes.  Then the lights went out.  And then back on a couple minutes later to great cheers from our table and a few others who were also of the less cultured variety.  Then back off again, at which point the staff seemed to accept that there wasn’t enough power to run both the fans and the lights, so off went the fans, up went the heat, but at least we could see the soup as we brought it to our lips.  From here, all went pretty well to the end of main course at which point the rain started.  It was a nice sprinkle and I found it quite pleasant as I received a light misting through the screen to my left.  Then it became a heavy downpour and I found it less pleasant as the water flow inside the car increased from misting to sprinkler-in-the-face.  Three attendants rushed to lift the jammed window and succeeded after 30 seconds.  I was reasonably happy to be soaked from the waist up.

Unfortunately I also noted that a dark reddish gray collection of rainwater was now to be found in my saucer.  On its own this was not a problem, but from this observation I deduced that there was also reddish gray water mixed into the fruit salad that I had just been served for dessert.  Not happy to partake of only 4 courses of my 5 course meal, I rationalized this problem away by guessing that the reddish tinge could be iron.  I don’t eat a lot of meat in South Sudan so consuming this water may have helped to prevent anemia.  Yes it’s possible that there was more lead than iron in the water, but let’s not go there.

The Toilet:          The first thing I noticed when entering the toilet was a sign asking passengers to please refrain from using the toilet while in a station.  The second thing I noticed was that the toilet was a squat pot and that the hole dropped straight down to a blur of gravel flying by below.  This explained the sign.  It also took away the best opportunity to use the squat pot given that this car also tilted back and forth and hopped up and down without any sort of predictability.  It probably would have been better not to think about what percentage of waste matter actually went directly down the hole.  Thankfully I was born with a Y chromosome and therefore had the option of standing up and keeping my nose and mouth as far away from the hole as possible.  I determined that the optimum positioning was to jam one foot against each wall of the compartment one slightly ahead of the other.  I could then lean forward on my forearm with my elbow against the left wall and my hand against the wall in front of me, forming some sort of a tripod type stance.  I think engineers will tell you this is a stable position.  I can confirm it.  My efficiency rating was at least 95 percent.

So there you have it, in a very big nutshell.  If any of you ever get a chance I highly recommend trying this once, and I’ll almost certainly never try it again.