The first class run that did not run to expectations

The first class run that did not run to expectations

I was taking this ride through a complete twist of fate that should not have happened under normal circumstances.  I had first attempted to book the Wednesday train to Voi and saw that it was fully booked as per the online booking system.  The system only showed one free first class seat in the whole train.  I was sure that this was an error.  This was because the trains on any other day, including Tuesday and Thursday, had many free seats in either of Economy or First class.  There was no way that only the Wednesday train could be full.  I had tried this initial attempt at booking on a Sunday, but could not manage due to this apparent error.

I called KR on Monday the first thing in the morning when I got to office.  One of the numbers provided on their website did not go through.  The other number went straight to the automatic answering system.
“For service in English, press 1, for Kiswahili press 2”.
I did.
“For booking go to the Madaraka Express website, to get a ticket go to the train station, to get any other service, press 2”.
I did.
“For services that you can do online, go to the website.  To continue press 3”.
I did.
“You can easily book by going to the Madaraka express website, to get instructions on how to book, press 1, for any other service press 4”.
I did.
I went through hoops and loops until about five minutes later when I got an option to speak to an agent, after which, “You are number three on the queue, please wait to speak to the next available agent.  The waiting time is (voice change) five hundred and twenty (voice back) seconds”

Anyway, I waited for those additional five or so minutes, then finally, “How can I help?”
“Is it true that there is no space on the Wednesday, September 11, 2024, train?”
“Is that what the website says?”
“Yes”
“Then it is true,” she stated, paused and disconnected.


I was not taking any more chances with this travel.  I went online, booked the one remaining seat in first class, paid the 3200 for the Nairobi-Voi travel and got this done with.  I searched for a train to Voi on Wednesday immediately after, and for sure it was now reading ‘fully booked’.  That online system was working for sure.  For Kenya Railways, I only had one thought – why not just add a 90-seater coach and book anyone who wants to get onto that full coast train?  Problem solved; case closed!  However, KR have a mind of their own.  When the current coaches are full, then it is full, cast in stone, case closed on their part.

And knowing how KR was now ‘problem solving’ things, I was not taking any other new chances.  I subsequently booked an economy class seat from Voi to Nairobi on Saturday, September 14 – this for sure is problem solved in advance in both our parts, mine and KRs.  I was now set, with two SMS confirmation of bookings, one an accidental first class, another a real economy class for 1050.


I was at the station early on Wednesday.  As early as 6.50am.  I went through luggage sniff by the dogs at the entrance yard.  This is where we lay everything on a long tray about twenty metres long, with passengers standing a metre behind the two luggage holds that are in parallel.  The luggage trays were full, if this was an indication on the expected number of travelers on this morning.  We would soon scan the luggage and off we went to the terminal building to the ticket office.  There was a large lobby.  One counter was marked ‘cancellations’.  Another, ‘;reschedules’.  These two were having a sizeable crowd, I counted a queue of six on either.  One end of the lobby was marked ‘printing of tickets’.  I went onto one machine that had only one person ahead.  There was a staffer on the next machine.  I remember seeing a third machine and not sure if there was a fourth one beyond that.

My attention was drawn to the going ons at the second machine where the staffer was standing.  A person who looked like a passenger was also next to that machine, seemingly distressed.  Soon I would hear the staffer call someone on phone, “Si ukimbie usort hii machine, ticket ya passenger imekwama ndani”
“Can I just print another on the next machine,” the passenger guy asked.
“No, not possible, once released it cannot reprint”

I keyed in my phone number and the account number as per the SMS message and soon enough good a ticket sticking out of the slot below the touchscreen.  I printed a second one for the return journey then left the machine for the person behind me even as the queue started to form on this machine and the one after the stalled one.  I examined my ticket and saw the booking details for the first time.  I was on seat 41 coach 3.  “Let it be window seat”, I told myself.  Mathematically, 41 is an odd number, hence was definitely a window seat. Precisely the eleventh row on a 4-seater plan.  Such odd numbers should only be at the window on one set of two seats, or on the isle on the other set of two.  In this case, window it is for 41.

I went past security check on the ground floor of the terminal building, then went upstairs to the waiting lounge.  I saw a segregated section on the large lobby written ‘First class waiting area’.  I could count the ten or so people seated there, mostly non-Africans.  I thought of this for a moment then matched in the direction of that waiting area.  I did not make two steps before I got a stop.
“Stop, where to?”
“To the waiting area”
“Ticket?”

I showed it to the lady staffer.  She looked at it with some disbelief.  I did not know why.  Maybe that class has some characteristics that I was missing, with my jeans and T-shirt.  She let me go, as I went to the large waiting area with hardly anyone.  I could see just across the glass partition to my left, the twice large economy waiting area already three quarters full and filling by the minute.  It was now just about 0710hrs.  I still had almost an hour of nothing before I would be out of here.  I just sat down and kept an eye open for the going ons.  I could see the now peeling paint on one of the wall structures next to the transparent roof.  And I got attracted to that roof due to the two large patches of discoloration.  I know the effects of lack of maintenance when I see them, and I was surely seeing them.  I wondered what it would take to fix such apparently minor defects.  Maybe the price of just three first class tickets?

I left for the washrooms at 07.40am and while there heard some muffled sound on the public address system.  Many passengers along the corridors next to the washrooms paused and strained to hear.  It was as unclear as a broken sound system.  It was something like, “inaudible unclear unclear passengers on first unclear unclear boarding unclear inaudible”

I just knew that it had something to do with first class, and so when I was walking back to the waiting area, I saw a stream of passengers from that waiting area start walking on the walkway over the platform towards boarding.  I passed by the economy waiting area, many of the eyes on that section chagrined with my walking past and marched towards the action.  I walked with the twenty or so other passengers towards the platform.  Last time I was here the gates to that overhead walkway were opened by a scan of the ticket.  Now they were permanently open for all to walk by.  I wondered whether it was yet another broken system, or if they had just done away with it due to its inconvenience to the mass transit system.


The coaches were clearly marked and therefore it did not take me any guess to know when I got to coach 3.  There was just one person ahead of me as we got into coach 3.  I showed my ticket to the attendant at the entrance to the coach and was let through.  I faced the first class for the first time ever.  I thought that my knees would buckle with excitement but none of that happened.  I was surprised that I was not wowed at all, or maybe not yet.  I even wondered what the hype was all about.  Not that I was not impressed, I was.  The coach was clean, very, with two seats on either side of the isle.  The seats were VIP red, Ok, burgundy.  Each seat had an arm rest.  They were in a fixed reclined position.  Each seat was accessible to a foldable tray fixed at the back of the front seat.  They were all facing one direction, the direction of travel towards Mombasa.  The coach was not crowded.  The overhead luggage racks were empty as the passengers started streaming in.  I was probably the sixth person in.

My mathematics would turn out to be incorrect, since no. 41 was an isle seat, with 42 as window seat.  How this came to be, do not ask me.  Anyway, ask me, since I figured it out sometime later in the journey.  The coach was a sixty-six seater.  A division by four indicates that there shall be 16 rows of four and an extra two seats.  So, the numbering must be starting with those 2 seats, then odd numbers now get switched, with those to be on the isle moving to window, and you guessed it, those on the window going to the isle.  Those damn two seats!  I was now on the isle.  But the coach was too spacious that I did not even see an effect of being isle or window.  It was just cozy.  I sat on my seat and started enjoying my good ambiance.  The seat was comfy.

It took less than five minutes for the coach to start filling up.  Finally, the person seating on 42 came though, cross by me and sat on his seat.  He peered out of the window, which was not very transparent due to some streaks of dirty and age, and exhaled with some satisfaction.  He unfolded this tray and placed something that looked like a novel onto the tray.  He placed his phone next to it, dialed it, and proceeded to start chating loudly in it.
“Hello, munene, niatia rewu, ha ha ha ha!,” he laughed animatedly and went on to talk, loudly.

I stayed put, relaxed, just letting my eyes do the roving.  The coach continued to fill up.  Now back to why I was not wowed.  There was nothing to wow me so far.  The seats and configuration were not any different from what I would get on a typical Easycoach to Western Kenya.  I could even recline the Easycoach seats further back.  These were fixed at that angle of recline.  At least they had these foldable trays, that would come in handy at some point for holding the laptop and stuff.

My eyes continued walking around the coach.  A white guy and someone who looked like a Kenyan girl sat on the seat across the isle.  They looked related, somehow, in an item of sort.  Behind me was also some guy and lady, who kept talking to these two across the isle.  Occasionally the lady from behind would come physically between me and the mzungu and tell the couple something.  To the lady, whom she always talked to in vernacular or Kiswahili, she reminded her to ‘chunga huyo mzee vizuru’.  To the guy, she said two words in English then proceeded in some other language, “Habend du eine gute reise.”

She went back to her seat behind me and sat next to the guy, whom they continued to speak in vernacular and occasionally shouted their words to the lady across my isle on the window seat.  She would answer in the same, with the guy next to him complaining occasionally, “You speak what me hear that not”

The three would laugh at him, as he laughed back, then the lady behind me would speak something in Deutsch and kind of assure him that all was OK, even as she reminded the lady besides the guy across the isle to ‘chunga mzee’.

At exactly 0800, the train started to move as slowly as it can and started gaining speed.  The coach was almost half empty as we started heading towards Athi River as the first station.  With the coach this empty, it was just natural that there shall be movements, both voluntary and involuntary.  The two couples who had been struggling to speak in Kiswahili, English, vernacular and Deutsch got a chance to group.  The two across the isle stood and moved back to join the two who were seated behind me.  They conversed as a group in four languages and decided to all move away to some seats much further behind, since their talk would soon disappear somewhere in the background into a muffle.  The only time I heard about them was when the trolley for drinks was passing by and they shouted at the lady to hurry to where they are to give them ‘kakitu’.

It was then all good as the inter-city rolled along the standard gauge railway.


Ruckus would start at Emali station, the next stop after Athi River station, when a group of passengers came into our coach and demanded for their seats.  By then the person in 42 by the window had already left.  In fact, he had left before we had even hit Athi River.  He had picked one person from the front seat and another from the front opposite seat.  These front two must have been seats 44 and 46, isle and window respectively.  My colleague on the window seat incited the action.  He first stood, then shoved his phone in his coat pocket.
“Tuthie tunyoe njohi mani,” he told his friends.
“Eh, tuthie rethuradi, tugore ka njohi”
They left.  They seem to be in need for an immediate drink that could not wait a second.

There followed lots of movements within the train coach.  There must have been about ten or so vacant seats, add to those for the likes of my colleague in 42 window seat who had picked his friends and went njohi at the restaurant.  Passengers rearranged and sat at will.  My own seat was now also about to be free.  The two seats across the isle were also free.  I now had the whole row of four seats to choose from.  I moved to the seat across and sat on the window seat 39.  It was the East side and the sun rays were seeping through the not-so-clear train window pane.  It was better than the window seat 42 which did not have any sun.  I savoured the rays as the train rolled towards Emali.  All was relaxed.  The coach was not as noisy.  The first trolley would soon roll by.  Alcoholic drinks would soon start being served, despite the stern warning that was announced to the effect that there would be no alcohol allowed until Mtito Andei.  That was the point when the trolley person was summoned loudly for ‘kakitu’ by the quad-lingual quadruple.

The coach started getting louder as the drinks started being passed through with that trolley.  That trolley was the source of all the noise.  We were hardly 50km out of the city but the noises were getting louder in this carefree seat-anywhere-you-want environment.


Our once-upon-a-time peace came to an end at Emali when a relatively large group of passengers got in, mostly foreigners, and demanded to have their seats.  This disturbed the once random seating arrangement, as now everybody was forced back to their seats.  But do not blame our lack of civility on this issue.  We had first attempted, or rather, some people behind my row of four empty seats had tried to negotiate with the newcomers.  The negotiation was more of telling them to ‘take any seat’, loudly, drunk accent.  However, the new group wanted to ‘sit together’ as a secondary need, but primarily because it was their booked seats.  The wazungus additionally expressed their fear about what would happen later on when other people came in and they get dislodged from this current ‘take any seat’ open plan arrangement.  They had even started to attempt to take the ‘take any seat’ option, only for there quest to sit together to fail to materialize.  People had to go back to their seats.

I was dislodged from 39 window, but my own pair of seats was empty, and hence I just moved across the isle to get the back to my two free seats.  I only suffered the burden of moving my laptop and unplugging the power from the wall socket just below the East window.  I had to replug the power on my initially assigned set of seats.  My friend initially on seat 42 was still gone to the restaurant since before Athi River.  He did not seem like he would was in a hurry to come back.

Across the isle were now seated the initial occupants who had sat there as we left Nairobi station at 0800hrs.  The African girl sat by the window.  The seatmate sat next to the isle, a seat from me, as I had now sat next to the window at 42.  It is next to 42 that I could access the powering point by the wall.  Brings me to another lack of wow – only those by the windows get to access power points, unless they allow you to pass a cable across or below their legs if you are on the isle side.  My laptop was back to the tray top.  The couple across the isle came back with their bottle after this incident of being chased away from wherever they had been chased away from.  They were of course not happy and had loudly voiced their discontent as much.  The onset of intoxication and carefreeness did not help much, “Sasa train ni empty na watu wengine wana demand viti!  Si wazikule!”
The guy seated next to the lady would ask, “What you said?”
“Nothing darling”
Nothing who?  I managed to gather that intelligence, thanks for loud talk.
“We are just talking, just talking to my uncle and auntie,” she said while looking at the seats just behind me, where the two other members of the party were now also back to, even as they also joined in the lamentation.

They continued to pour tumbler upon tumbler from the wine bottle and kept ordering for ‘one more’ bottle as the trolley passed by.  That trolley!

They kept talking, and loudly so.  The drinks had surely got to them.  
“We are now at Kaibaizi? Kibezi?”, the German across the isle asked, both to his darling next seat and also looked back behind my seat to auntie and uncle.
“Yes, Kibwezi”, the two ladies responded almost in unison.

I shook my head in disbelief.  It was clearly visible through the window that we were at Mtito Andei.  We had passed Kibwezi almost a half an hour ago, when the seat exchanging drama was still fresh.  The train had not yet even gained speed as that Mtito signage started moving back as we rolled by.  A smaller sign just below it read ‘Voi 98km’.  They did not even need the visuals, since the public address system had just announced the approach and departure to Mtito.  Those four were already deep in the bottle to hear and see anything else.

“Bring bottle”, the German stopped the trolley and pointed to the existing bottle on the front seat pocket, “Like this,” he pointed again.  The trolley, that trolley!
This was probably the third such a 750ml bottle of that red liquid.  Two girls and two guys were on it.  Two just across the isle to my left.  Two just behind my seat.  The couple, an item, to my left.  Uncle and Auntie behind me.  How four people can down bottle by bottle that fast hardly 100km into the journey still baffles me.


That 98km to Voi would be quite a long non-stop ride and it did not take long before people started moving about, some to washrooms, some to stretch, and for the four drinkers, they just wanted to ‘chokozana’.  So, auntie left her seat and came to the isle just next to my seat.  And ‘chokozana’ she did.
“This one”, she pointed at her watch, “It is Tony who bought me”.
“Ha ha ha”, the seated colleague by the window responded, “Jana alipo nibuyia hii phone ya iphone, imagine alisema kuwa lazima nitaitishi kitu ingine, as if he knew.  I am envious na sasa najua what else nataka kutoka kwa mzae.”
“Yes, hapo umesema ukweli, itisha hizi earrings”, she pointed them, “Hizi ni za gold.  Ni Tony pia aninunua”.
“Ich liebe deine Freunde, wunderbar!,” the standing lady leaned at the GE guy and said laughingly.
“Nime kucomplement”, she told her colleague by the window, amidst hearty laughter from the two girls.  The GE guy just looked around, even looking back behind my seat to see if ‘uncle’ would say anything, but uncle just extended a tumbler and asked for a fill.

After the tumbler was handed back, the window girl leaned over to her man.  She whispered something audibly in Bernhard’s left ear, “Babe, you will buy me those earrings, yes?”
“You, you know me I buy you all everything you say”
She wore a big smile and poured a full plastic of the red drink, Dostdy hof, I thought I read from afar.  
“Tigana na muthuri wakwa”, she turned back to tell her friend who had now returned to her seat, just behind me.
“Badala ya kunishukuru kwamba nimekuchanua, wewe unaniambia ati muthuri wakwa,” the lady behind my seat responded in a clean coastal accent, apart from the last two words that she had centralized.

I kept looking out through the window.  I could occasionally glance to the couple just across the isle.  They kept their noisy sputa.
“Kawera, careful, muthe uyu ti mujinga”, the colleague from behind me told her as softly as those around could hear.

Occasionally, the Kenyan guy would chip it, mostly to encourage the girls on or to get a tumbler filled.
“Kawera, keep your man busy and stop looking behind”, he would interject, to the protest of Bernhard, who would then look back and struggle to protest.
“I not look back, just see corridor, and me sit with my girl,” he would look back while protesting.
“Bernhard, stop looking at me and my sister,” they guy behind me would warn him.  
By sister she meant the girl with the gold.  They were now permanently fixed behind me after that ‘sit anywhere’ bruhaha had ended prematurely, their voices increasing with every sip of the drink.  They were laughing so loudly behind my ear that it was now almost uncomfortable.  I minded my own business.  

“Kwanza hii njugu na drinki iko sawa sana”, the lady behind me said, loudly, if I may add, in the Coast kind-a accent.  She offered some nuts to the couple across the isle but they both refused to take the offer.  They probably did not want to know ‘iko sawa’ to what level.  They kept the drinks going.

“Tutalipa wine sita leo?  Leo ni leo!  Lakini mimi nitalipa mbili tu, Kawera na mzee wake walipe hizo zingine”, the coast accent said.
“Ni nne au ni tano?,” Kawera protested from the window.
“Hapana, ni saba?”, coast accent.
“Yani mumelewa?”, the guy behind me asked drunkardly, “The bottles we have taken are only six.  Can’t you count?”
“Me no care.  The wine is gut!,” Bernhard put a stop to the debate.  Then changed the topic, “You know today be nine-eleven?,” he looked back.

Oh, that is true, I said to myself, even as I started to put a wrap to my comfortable sojourn, by unplugging the power and showing the charger to the bag that I had already removed from overhead and place on seat 41.  It was a matter of time before that laptop was also closed and place inside that bad.

In less than thirty minutes I would be disembarking from the train.  The guy who had gone njohi in the restaurant since Athi river was yet to be back, even as I left both seats 41 and 42 empty and disembarked at Voi at exactly 12.02pm.

WWB, the Coach, Voi, Kenya, Sep. 11, 2024