Uganda has no functioning passenger railway network, and reaching Bwindi Impenetrable National Park requires either road travel or a charter flight. For visitors from countries with extensive rail networks, this absence is sometimes puzzling—and occasionally disappointing. Understanding the history of Uganda’s railways, what happened to them, and why road transport now dominates long-distance travel in the country provides useful context for the logistics of a gorilla trekking trip and for understanding Uganda’s infrastructure development challenges more broadly.
The Uganda Railway: colonial origins
The Uganda Railway—sometimes called the “Lunatic Line” by critics who questioned the sanity and expense of its construction—was built by the British colonial administration between 1896 and 1901, connecting the Indian Ocean coast at Mombasa (in present-day Kenya) to the shores of Lake Victoria at Port Florence (now Kisumu, Kenya). The railway extended into Uganda with a line from Kisumu to Kampala, completed in stages through the early twentieth century, making Uganda accessible by rail from the East African coast for the first time. The construction consumed enormous resources—nearly 32,000 South Asian labourers were brought to East Africa for the work, and the notorious man-eating lions of Tsavo killed over 130 workers during a nine-month period in 1898.
The railway’s purpose was primarily economic: to facilitate the extraction of agricultural and mineral resources from Uganda’s interior to the coast for export, and to support British administrative control of the landlocked protectorate. Cotton, the primary colonial export crop developed in the Buganda Kingdom with missionary and commercial support, moved by rail to Mombasa and then by ship to British textile mills. The railway line ran through central Uganda and the Rift Valley but never extended to the south-western highlands around Bwindi—this region’s tea and cotton output moved by road to Kampala.
Decline and abandonment
Uganda’s railway system declined progressively from independence in 1962 through the Amin period and beyond. The expulsion of the Asian community in 1972 removed much of the managerial and technical expertise that had maintained the railway infrastructure. Equipment was not replaced, track deteriorated, and the operational capacity fell sharply. By the 1990s, most of the Ugandan rail network had effectively ceased functioning, with only limited freight services continuing on the main east-west line. Passenger services had ended entirely.
Proposals for railway rehabilitation have appeared in multiple Ugandan development plans since the 2000s, and a standard-gauge railway extension from the East African standard-gauge network (which has made rapid progress in Kenya) into Uganda has been discussed with Chinese financing. However, as of the mid-2020s, Uganda’s railway rehabilitation has not reached the south-western region, and there is no prospect of rail access to Bwindi in the foreseeable planning horizon. The journey to the gorillas will continue, for the relevant future, on the roads.
Road quality and journey times
The roads connecting Kampala to Bwindi have improved significantly since the early 2000s, when much of the western highway was unpaved and journey times were unpredictable. The main road from Kampala to Mbarara is now fully tarmacked and maintained, as is much of the Mbarara-to-Kabale section. The final sections approaching Bwindi from Kabale or Kisoro involve shorter stretches of unpaved road that are passable by 4WD vehicle in all but the most severe weather conditions. The total journey time from Kampala to Bwindi is 7 to 9 hours by road depending on the route and conditions—long but entirely manageable in a comfortable safari vehicle with planned stops.
