By Ikebesi Omoding
Go through the Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) yard, straddled between the Station and Mukwano roads in Kampala, and one is likely to notice a number of surprises. One of them is the use of panya ways that the pedestrians have made in the area.
The footpaths crisscross the rail sleepers, the usual pathways of the train. It has become the main passageway for people ambling to and from Kampala City to places such as Namuwongo, Kibuli, Nsambya, even Katwe and possibly beyond these areas. But it is a tress passage!
Occasionally, this is brought to the attention of the tress passers by the URA officials, who will stand by the paths to try to halt people from using the railway yard for their routes. Yet it is difficult to decipher from their presence, whether they are railway officials, or merely scammers who are trying to harass people to gain their own benefit. In their attire and demeanour, there is nothing to show that they are acting on behalf of URC, apart from being out speaking.
A passer said that one of these “officials” stopped her and told her to turn back by the Mukwano Road overlooked by the road overpass towards the Nsambya Police Barracks. She complained to the man and pointed out that there were other people before her who could be seen hopping over the rails ahead of her. But the “official” ignored her observation of the tress passers who included Policemen and Women, ostensibly going for their duties in Kampala.
Another passer on the panya road by the Mukwano Industries, when confronted by the “official”, was rather rude. He pointed to the people who were cultivating in the yard. He asked the “official”: “Are these people cultivating these grasses for the Uganda Railway Corporation?” Obviously, the “official” had no answer to the query.
There are a number of people seen in the grounds who are cultivating, or harvesting various species of Bermuda grass. And there are many more who have, and are, planting various seedlings; and are seen going about their “duties”, undisturbed by the “officials”. Are those plant seedlings the property of the Uganda Railways?
This gives a reminding hark-back to 11 years ago when there was a URC altercation with the Rift Valley Railways (RVR), a South African company, which had seemingly bought a stake in URC, together with the Kenyan East African Railways (EAR). The subsequent “settlement”, which involved a Court case in England, does not appear to have solved much.
For these seemingly assiduous “officials”, to deter people from using the yard as their shot-cuts to wherever they are going, there is a need for the URC to put up gates that prevent people from using the yard. Already there is a gate by an offshoot of the Station Road on the southern side, which is un-attended to. People go through the gate without even the URC gate keepers by, even batting their eye lids. And for the nearly 400 meters of the yard by the Station Road, the railway has to think of building a fence to deter the tress passers and the cultivators.
The other difficult rail-road crossings would be near the Kitgum House, to the north, and at the southern end, overlooked by the Carrierfour/LC Waikiki Super Market, by the road branching to Nsambya.
Besides that, the URC should take into account the dilapidated and corrugating rail wagons in the yard that have spent decades without being moved. On some of the sleepers, trees have outgrown the degenerating standing and parked wagons, which indicate that these have been ignored for about four decades.
This goes for the yard infrastructure, too. For some of it, it is obvious that from maybe as far back as 40-or-so years, there has been no attention given to their presence, as to their function.
