Kenya plans to modernize an old railway track to link a newer line to neighboring Uganda at a cost of $210 million, with funding from an unidentified private backer rather than building another modern one with Chinese money.

The development of Kenya's railways has been part of China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative, a multibillion dollar series of infrastructure projects upgrading land and maritime trade routes between China and Europe, Asia and Africa.

Kenya opened a modern railway linking the port of Mombasa with the capital Nairobi in 2017 at a cost of $3.2 billion. This was then linked with another new line, costing $1.5 billion and also funded by Chinese loans, to Naivasha in the Rift Valley.