Train tracks become market and thoroughfare in the absence of trains

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Trains seldom pass these days along the once busy tracks on the outskirts of the city center in Kampala, Uganda. People use the tracks as a thoroughfare and impromptu market instead, sitting for hours and even days on end without any trains disrupting informal business. The so-called "Lunatic Express" was built by the British in the early 1900s to connect the Kenyan port town Mombasa with Uganda's inland capital Kampala. By the 1950s, the train ferried safari go-ers and other tourists between Kenya and Uganda when roads were unpredictable at best and dangerous at worst. As part of a trade network, the railways increased in importance throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Recently, violence after the Kenyan elections in late 2007 lead to parts of the tracks being destroyed in Kibera, a slum outside Nairobi. Functionality has not returned as repairs have not been made.

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