Comments by "Peter Jacobsen" (@pjacobsen1000) on "Why China is Building Africa’s Railways" video.

There are lots of fighting words in the comment section, but perhaps we can agree that of all the countries currently involved in railway building in Africa (China, Germany, France, Canada, Turkey), at least it is good that they are all building Standard Gauge Railways, so they can one day all be linked together to create a pan-African railway system.
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It's hard to compare costs between countries, but Denmark has just completed a double-track high-speed railway (250 km/h) at $30 million/km. The Mombasa-Nairobi Line is single-track, design speed 120 km/h. Cost: $6.2 million/km. So there definitely a difference in cost, but also in specifications, and in location, of course.
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@V100-e5q Well, I'm a little more optimistic. Let's give it twenty years and come back and continue the discussion. See you on October 26, 2041 😃
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@r3dpowel796 I have an old friend in Surabaya. Maybe one day I'll take the train all the way from China to visit her.
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@lif3andthings763 You may be right, but we can never really know because the terms and conditions are secret. The Kenyan people can't know and the Chinese people can't know.
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@andysol.4593 If the projects are not funded by German and French loans, then definitely no.
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@freddy4603 There is some Western investment in Africa, but perhaps not as much as that from China. Lake Turkana Wind Power Project in Kenya is the largest private investment in Kenya's history. It is not a loan that Kenya has to pay back, but there is an agreement that Kenya buys all the electricity at a fixed price for a fixed term. Investors are mostly from Northern Europe and Africa itself.
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