Skip to main content

Nairobi 10 - Railway Museum

During our trip to Nairobi we made a historical trip, yeah to the museum. That too, to the Railway museum. This museum comprises of locomotives and photos of ships which were part of the East African Railways which operated the railways and the harbours of Kenya and Uganda.
As soon as you enter the museum campus, you can see its walls painted artistically. At first it is the art museum that welcomes you, numerous young art students are seen jamming and painting, what talents!
Next is the reception to the museum. Entrance ticket is 600 shillings each for non-residents. In the same building we can go through the photographs of the locomotives and trains belonging to the early 20th century. All related items belonging to the British era can be seen as exhibits.










We can also see the railway routes of East African Railways (EAR), Tanganyika Railways and Kenya Uganda Railways (KUR). Many artefacts are carefully chosen and can be seen here only. The bicycle designed for running on track is a unique one. Also there to be witnessed are the old railway station clocks, lamps, bells, lights with station master, tortoise century, model ships, etc..

The harbours of EAR includes the ones used for ferrying in the surrounding lakes - Victoria, Albert, Kyoga and Nile. So the ships that were deployed to operate in these lakes are also prototyped here. Fire fighting equipments of those days are also displayed. One will feel enthusiastic to see the ship steering wheel from India.
There are also the speedometer, single line train signals, old phone instruments and journal polishers. Some steam operators are still seem to be active in Kenya today. Some of the porcelain items belonging to the Queen are exhibited too for public view.  
British are credited for the railway network in India and same effort have gone into Africa also during their time. Many of the items in the African Railways can be seen to have come from India.

  

Outside this building we can see a garage with EAR trains preserved on tracks and few more trains of KUR and Tanganyika standing on tracks outside. This is just a great collection of old days trains seen on tracks. It takes a couple of hours to go through the whole museum and one is taken back in times. The Curator office was close that day due to holiday.

 
 This place is just next to the Nairobi railway station and often less crowded so we can go around leisurely. A must visit for history lovers.
 Feeling nostalgic about the childhood toy trains?
Labels:
Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anjaneyar Temple - Gerugambakkam, Porur

 Very recently we came to know about the Anjaneyar temple built by actor Arjun is at Gerugambakkam. On a Sunday evening we drove towards this place. We need to detour from the Kundrathur main road to reach this temple and from then on we need to face a rough and patchy road. In just 5 minutes one can reach the temple. A small residential street leads to the temple. Very near it one could see few small stalls mushroomed up to sell pooja items. The vehicles have to be parked in the street near the temple gates. First is the corridor were few trees are seen.  On taking left is the entrance to the temple and you can see the Lord Anjaneyar much ahead. Here too are few trees uniformly spaced out. There is a coconut farm adjacent to this temple. There is a shelter above Lord Anjaneyar, but for that it is a open air temple. Facing Lord Anjaneyar and to the left and right corner are two shrines - one for Lord Ganesh and the other for Lord Anjaneyar's - Lord Rama, Lord Lakshmana and God...
Post a Comment
Read more

Aadi koozh vaarthal

Aadi koozh vaarthal is a religious occasion for most Tamil house holds. In the month of Aadi raagi koozh is served to all thirsty people around the neighborhood. Koozh is prepared and offered to Amman followed by the distribution. While offering koozh there are also other heathly eatables included in the Padayal.  The koozh preparation starts a day earlier. Rice is cooked first and raagi flour mixed in water is added to it and cooked till ragi gives a glazed look to the koozh. This is then left over night to ferment. The next day water is added to the koozh to get a drinking consistency. To this we add finely chopped onions as topping and curd to give that cooling effect. Once the koozh is all set we go about the padayal to the almighty Amman. Aadi, the Tamil month solely dedicated to Amman is for celebrating her and her kindness to her devotees. So we first offer the koozh to her in the Padayal followed by white rice and other items. The USP of Aadi koozh is that...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mannargudi - Day 2

On the next day at Mannargudi, we had an early start. After having tea through room service we left to the  Rajagopalaswamy temple. The temple gopuram can be seen at a large distance as the from the space was allocated for parking. Early morning we could see only 2 cars before us. After paying the parking fee we went inside the temple. Due to the maintenance work we were devoid of enjoying the beauty of the temple gopurams. We got to see the temple's famous elephant - Sengamalam as soon as we got in. This temple is called as south Dwaraka, there is small Krishna statue inside which we can worship by taking in our hands.  The main deity Lord Vasudevaperumal is seen here along with his cow. Next to his the baby Krishna idol which can we worshipped by devotees for their special prayers. We had a good darshan of the Perumal. Had theertham, jadaari and then walked towards the Goddess. The consort of Lord Rajagopalaswamy is Goddess Sengamala Thaayar. We had a very peaceful...
Post a Comment
Read more