XN000022-1979-02-03 — Page 3

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1979

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PROGRESS ON BEACON HILL TUNNEL

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WORK ON THE $78 MILLION BEACON HILL RAILWAY TUNNEL IS ONE-THIRD COMPLETE.

SINCE WORK BEGAN ABOUT A YEAR AGO, SOME 350 METRES OF TUNNELL ING HAS BEEN COMPLETED AT THE SOUTHERN END OF THE TUNNEL. OF THIS, ABOUT 100 METRES HAS BEEN LINED WITH CONCRETE OF 550 MM THICK.

ON THE NORTHERN END, 230 METRES OF PILOT TUNNEL HAS BEEN DRILLED.

MR. LEUNG MIN-SUN, CHIEF ENGINEER OF THE RAILWAY DIVISION OF THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT, SAID TODAY (SATURDAY) THAT THE PROJECT, WHICH WILL TAKE TWO-AND-A-HALF YEARS TO COMPLETE, WAS ON SCHEDULE.

ON COMPLETION IN MID-1980, HE SAID, THE 2.3 KM DOUBLE TRACK TUNNEL WOULD REPLACE THE EXISTING SINGLE TRACK TUNNEL, WHICH HAS BEEN IN USE SINCE 1910.

THE NEW TUNNEL WILL BE ABOUT SEVEN METRES HIGH AND JUST OVER 10 METRES WIDE, ABOUT THE SAME SIZE AS THE TWO LION ROCK TUNNELS. ITS HEIGHT WILL BE SUFFICIENT TO ALLOW FOR THE ELECTRIFICATION OF THE KOWLOON-CANTON RAILWAY.

MEANWHILE FOLLOWING THE COMPLETION OF DOUBLE TRACKING WORK BETWEEN HUNG HOM AND SHA TIN, WORK ON THE SECTION BETWEEN SHA TIN AND A POINT NEAR THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY IS MAKING HEADWAY.

SO FAR, ABOUT 30 PER CENT OF THE WORK HAS BEEN COMPLETED.

THE WORK, WHICH INCLUDES THE LAYING OF A SINGLE TRACK OF THREE AND A QUARTER KILOMETRES, THE RECONSTRUCTION OF AN EXISTING K.C.R. BRIDGE OVER THE FO TAN NULLAH AND THE WIDENING OF TWO EXISTING BRIDGES WITHIN THE FO TAN AREA, FORMS THE FIRST PHASE OF TRACK WIDENING BETWEEN SHA TIN AND TAI PO MARKET.

MR. LEUNG SAID THAT ON COMPLETION OF THE TRACK WIDENING WORK BETWEEN SHA TIN AND TAI PO MARKET, PASSENGER AND FREIGHT TRAIN SERVICES WOULD BE GREATLY IMPROVED.

IN SHA TIN, WORK IS ALSO RACING AHEAD TO TRANSFORM THE EXISTING LOW-BLOCK RAILWAY STATION INTO A MODERN HIGH-RISE COMPLEX.

IN KOWLOON, WORK ON PHASE TWO OF THE REMODELLING OF MONG KOK RAILWAY STATION IS MAKING GOOD PROGRESS.

IN THE NOT-TOO-DISTANT FUTURE, RAILWAY JOURNEYS INTO THE NEW TERRITORIES WILL BE INTERSPERSED WITH MODERN STATIONS LINKED WITH EXCELLENT PUBLIC TRANSPORT FACILITIES.

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