II. AIRPORT RAILWAY
The Airport Railway Project is a 34-kilometre railway with two rail services, the Airport Railway serving Hong Kong's new Airport and the Lantau Line serving Tung Chung and relieving Nathan Road congestion, together with related property developments on the five main stations of the railway line.
While the go-ahead of the airport railway is still subject to Chinese agreement and the airport railway financing agreement, MTRC has however continued to carry out all the necessary preparatory work. Work is progressing well for the detailed design consultancies contracts which have been let out throughout 1992; some have reached the stage where detailed design work is being prepared aiming for tender
documentations, such as Tung Chung Station, Lai King Station and Tsing Yi Station. Major civils works for the railway ✓ stations are anticipated to go out to tenders before the end
of this year. A total of 55 contractors have been requalified for major civil engineering and building works for the Lantau and Airport Railway.
Prequalification for major electrical and mechanical works is
For progressing well; with some of them already completed. instance, tender documents for the rolling stock contract have
Other major already been sent out to prequalified tenderers. M&E contracts which MTRC has envisaged to call for tenders in the 3rd quarter of this year include signalling system; power supply system; environmental control system; and escalators and lifts; whilst tenders for platform screen doors; overhead line equipment; communications system; automatic fare collection; and main control system are scheduled to go out in the last quarter of 1993. Tenders for trackwork are anticipated to be called during the first quarter of 1994.
Recently, the Chinese Government has given its approval to the Central and Wanchai Reclamation which is one of the ten ACP (Airport Core Programme) projects, and part of this reclaimed land will be used for the Hong Kong Station of the airport railway. Contract to commence work on stage 1 of the Central and Wanchai Reclamation is likely to be awarded in September this year.