1973-1974 — Page 6

INTRODUCTION

The General Manager, Railway, administers on behalf of the Hong Kong Govern- ment the British Section of the Kowloon-Canton Railway which runs from the The con- Kowloon Station in Tsim Sha Tsui to Lo Wu on the Chinese border. struction of this Section, which is 36 Kilometres (22 miles) long and has a standard gauge of 1,435 mm. (4 feet 8 inches) commenced in 1906 and was com- pleted in 1910. It was opened to traffic on 1st October, 1910, with through service to Canton commencing on 5th October, 1911.

2. The daily traffic normally consists of 17 passenger trains each way and an average of five goods trains. At weekends and public holidays addition al passenger trains are run to cope with the increased demand.

There has been

no through passenger service between Kowloon and Canton since 1949 and people travelling to and from China must change trains at the border. Mail and goods wagons, travel through without transhipment. The running time between the two terminals in the British territory, including stops at seven intermediate stations, is about one hour.

GENERAL SURVEY

3. Goods and passenger traffic continued to increase and 1973/74 was another year in which new records were established (see Appendices IV, V and VI) as shown below :

(a) Gross railway revenue at $23,494,507 was $1,686,935 more than the

value in 1972/73.

(b) Passenger revenue at $11,315,657 was $983,083 more than in 1972/73. (c) Goods revenue at $10,680,776 was $455,040 more than in 1972/73. (d) Number of passengers at 13,235,023 was 830,053 more than in 1972/73. (e) Chargeable goods tonnage at 1,246,457 tons was 52,288 more than in

1972/73.

4. The number of pigs imported by rail was 1,501,930, a similar number to the previous year.

5. Imports from China amounted to 1,243,302 metric chargeable tons, re- presenting 99.75% of the total goods traffic. This exceeded the previous year's figure by 51,339 tons. Export tonnage was 2931 tons compared with 1,702 last year. Goods carried within the Colony amounted to 224 tons.

6. All goods tonnage referred to in this Report represents chargeable weight in metric tons except where described otherwise.

7. The number of passengers who travelled within the Colony was 11,723,570, a new record, and an increase of 578,035 on the previous year's figure (see Appendix V).

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