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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 April 2022
The history of Kenya is closely linked to the history of the railways. Although the reasons for the construction of this line were varied, one result of its construction was the rapid socio-economic development of Kenya which followed its completion in 1901. The railway's role in the socio-economic development of Kenya was perhaps best summed up by Sir Edward Grigg, the Governor of Kenya, in a speech to mark the official opening of the Uganda extension when he remarked:
The results of this railway project of thirty years ago have exceeded the wildest dreams of its originators. By accident the railway revealed the lovely highlands of Kenya and enabled us to plant there an outpost of the British race, which has in my belief a great part to play in the history of the European contact with Africa. It has been responsible also for the fact that we have been able to improve and establish economic crops over a rich and fertile country which until its advent had absolute no external trade. Cotton, coffee, sisal, wheat – all these things have been brought here by European pioneers and these things have been established simply because the railway has been built. Without the railway none of these valuable crops could have been established here for a day.
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