#14347 Feeling the Night Breeze on the Lunatic Express in Kenya

One of the iconic East African journeys is the overnight train from Mombasa to Nairobi. Passengers embark at the old Mombasa Railway Station in the sticky tropical late-afternoon sunshine, much as they have since the completion of the line in 1901. The railway, intended to open up a route to the landlocked Uganda colony, came to be known as the Lunatic Express when so many died during its construction—many in the jaws of the infamous man-eaters of Tsavo, a pair of eerily vicious lions that came to be known as the Ghost and the Darkness. These days, the old steam engines have been replaced by diesel locomotives, and the starched uniforms of the stewards may be a bit threadbare, but if you listen, you can still hear faint echoes of Old Africa as night falls and the train clacks through the baobab-strewn landscape. And the experience of waking up to look out upon the golden grasses of the Athi Plains—dotted with herds of zebra, antelope, and gazelle—is an experience not soon forgotten.