The Observatory also provides all meteorological services for the general public, merchant shipping, civil aviation and the armed forces. The main forecasting office and aviation weather centre is located at Kai Tak airport, and is linked to the Observatory by teleprinter and telephone. As a great seaport and airport, Hong Kong is responsible for providing weather information and forecasts to ships and aircraft over a wide area around the Colony; most encouraging cooperation is shown by the crews of ships at sea and aircraft in flight who voluntarily transmit weather reports to the Observatory.
A grant from the Colonial Development and Welfare fund enabled a new Radio-sonde station to be built near the Observatory during the year. Meteorological soundings of the upper atmosphere are carried out daily at this station, and the results, besides being of great scientific interest, will be of value to the high-flying commercial aircraft of the near future.
It is still impossible to obtain weather information of any kind from the mainland of China, and as a result it is extremely difficult to issue reliable forecasts for Hong Kong and for the sea and air routes near the China coast.
Some notes on scientific investigations carried out by the Observatory will be found in the chapter on Research.
The Railway
Kowloon is the southern terminal of a railway system extending to Hankow and Shanghai with connexions from these cities to North China. The British Section of the line, which is owned by the Hong Kong Government, is operated between Kowloon and the frontier, a distance of 36 kilometres. Through services were formerly operated to Canton and points further north, but since 14th October 1949, when the Central People's Government took over the administration of Canton, through train services have been suspended. Since that date, all passengers proceeding to and from China have been obliged to change trains at the frontier. It was also necessary to tranship all goods traffic during the first few months of the new régime, but since the latter half of 1950, goods traffic in waggon-loads has been permitted to operate through to Chinese territory without transhipment, only small consignments (in less than waggon-loads) having to be unloaded and carried over the frontier.
Total revenue for the year amounted to $5,505,103, operating expenditure being $4,313,569, leaving a net operating revenue of $1,191,533. There was a very considerable drop in revenue from all sources compared with the previous year. The revenue decrease of 47.82% was due to the restriction on travel to and from China imposed
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