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七 LORARY
INTRODUCTION
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The British Section of the Kowloon-Canton Railway was first opened to traffic on 10th October 1910 after four years of construction. It included a branch line of two feet gauge from Fanling to Sha Tau Kok from 1911 to 1925. The terminal at Tsim Sha Tsui was opened in 1916. Until the removal of Kowloon Station to Hung Hom in November, 1975, the railway ran from Tsim Sha Tsui at the southern tip of Kowloon Peninsula to Lo Wu at the border with China, a distance of 36 milometres (22 miles). The removal of Kowloon Station reduced the distance to 33.51 kilometres (20.82 miles). The system is a single line of standard gauge of 1,435 mm. (4 feet 8 inches) wide with nine stations, including terminii at both ends and a passenger and goods station at Mong Kok. There is a branch line of 1.00 kilometre to Wo Hop Shek near Fanling which is used only on festival days. Work is in progress to convert from a single line to a double track to Sha Tin, the first phase of a plan to double track the line from Hung Hom to Tai Po Market and eventually to Lo Wu.
2.
Since the removal of Kowloon Station to Hung Hom, the number of daily passenger trains has increased from 36 to 44, including trains operating between Hung Hom and Fanling and Tai Po Market. On Sundays and public holidays, additional passenger trains are run to cope with the in- crease in passengers. On certain festivals, such as Ching Ming and Chung Yeung, when large numbers of people are expected to visit the New Territories, special trains are provided to meet the increase in demand. The maximum number of freight trains which can be operated each day is twenty.
3.
Before 1949, it was possible to travel without changing trains from Kowloon to Canton and briefly in 1937 to Hankow. Since then, people travelling to and from China must change trains at Lo Wu. Freight and mail wagons, on the other hand, cross the border without transhipment, except for a change of the locomotive hauling the train. The journey time for a passenger train from Hung Hom to Lo Wu is slightly over an hour, including stops at each of the seven intermediate stations.
GENERAL SURVEY
4.
The year, which began on a quiet note, turned out to be a difficult one for the railway, with three disruptions to traffic, one lasting one and a half months. As a result of these and the internal situation in China, the revenue for the year showed a decline for the first time in nine years. The last time when revenue dropped was in 1966/ 67 when public transport companies in general suffered a loss in passengers as a result of disorder in Hong Kong. The following table compares the performance of 1976/77 with 1975/76.
2 0 FEB 1991
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