Karen Calabria

Mohammed Abdi Guhad sits idly in the shade of a makeshift wooden kiosk, explaining his plan to return to Somalia and fight for the country’s powerful Islamist movement. "I would rather kill than stay here doing nothing," he says, rubbing his hands in anticipation of leaving a dusty United Nations refugee camp in north-east Kenya where he has lived since fleeing unrest in his native land six years ago.

Known as the "Lunatic Express" for its exorbitant construction cost and the perilous dangers of disease and tribal and wildlife attacks its original builders faced in the late 1800s, the 104-year-old Kenya-Uganda Railway has fallen on hard times, falling deeper into debt and decrepitude as its rolling stock grows rustier by the day.