Online posts use ferry image to misleadingly compare SGR trains in Kenya and Tanzania

This article is more than one year old.
Published on December 8, 2023 at 14:23
3 min read
By Mary KULUNDU, AFP Kenya

Online posts in Kenya published with two images claim they show the difference in quality between the first-class sections on Kenya and Tanzania’s Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) train carriages. The claim follows criticism about Kenya’s controversial deal to purchase diesel-driven locomotives in 2017, while Tanzania opted for electric-powered trains secured through a contract with Chinese and Turkish firms. But the comparison is misleading; while one of the pictures shows the first-class section inside a Kenyan SGR train, the other image shows the interior of Tanzania’s recently unveiled passenger ferry.

On December 1, 2023, a post shared in Kenya on X (formerly Twitter) featured two images and a caption reading: “Kenya vs Tanzania SGR first class!”.

The first image shows part of the interior of a train with red seats – like those in the first-class section of Kenya’s SGR carriages – while the second one shows Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan sitting in a high-end cabin filled with monitors and recliners.

A screenshot of the misleading X post, taken on December 6, 2023

The same claim was repeated on Facebook here and here.

Some who commented believed the comparison to be a genuine one, in one case complaining that “Kenya we were scammed”. Others, however, said the image of Tanzania's president was misleading.

The SGR is Kenya's biggest infrastructure project since independence from Britain in 1963 and was launched to connect countries in East Africa by rail (archived report).

The Kenyan project has been criticised for its hefty cost.

Unlike Tanzania’s choice of electric-powered trains (archived here), Kenya acquired diesel-operated locomotives, and this has continued to feed into the public’s discontent (archived link).

But the comparison of the images in the online posts is inaccurate.

Ferry picture

A reverse image search of the picture featuring the Tanzanian leader revealed that it shows her seated inside the recently unveiled passenger ferry christened Kilimanjaro 8 that plies a route from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar.

Also known as “The Falcon of the Sea”, the Kilimanjaro 8 was launched in April 2023 and has a capacity of 631 passengers with three sections: economy, VIP and Royal Class (archived report).

Screenshot from an article on Tanzanian news site The Citizen showing Kilimanjaro 8

The image of the president was published on the Tanzanian government’s website and according to the caption she was travelling from Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam on November 28, 2023 (archived here).

Screenshot from the Tanzanian government website showing the president onboard the ferry, taken on December 6, 2023

According to this video published on Instagram (archived here) by Azam Marine, the company that operates Kilimanjaro 8, the Tanzanian leader was in the Royal Class section.

Tanzania anticipates launching its new trains early next year as it continues to construct various phases of its expanded railway network.

Meanwhile, the first image in the comparison post is indeed the first-class section of Kenya’s SGR passenger train, which has been reviewed on YouTube here and here (archived here and here).

AFP Fact Check compared screenshots from one of the videos and the picture posted in the misleading posts.

Screenshots comparing the image from the claim (left) and a YouTube video of Kenya’s SGR first-class section (right)

Matching elements include the Kenyan and Chinese flags next to the timer at the front, the red seats, the blue curtains and the stowage compartments.

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