10 freight carriages head to Chinese-built railway in Kenya

HARBIN -- Special trucks carrying 10 freight train carriages Friday departed from Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, for Kenya to be used on the newly operational Mombasa-Nairobi railway.

"The carriages, produced by CRRC Qiqihar railway stock corporation, will be delivered to Kenya by ship via Dalian, a port city in Liaoning province," said Wang Junsong, a senior engineer with the corporation.

The X2K carriage is double-layered with a load capacity of 78 tonnes, and each carriage is able to carry four containers 20-feet-long, according to Wang.

The corporation received orders totalling 1,000 carriages for the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya, a 480-km line operating from May 31.

The $3.8-billion project was constructed by the China Road and Bridge Corporation, with 90 percent funded by China.