ENG-1953 — Page 175

PUBLIC UTILITIES AND PUBLIC WORKS

The company has ordered twenty new double-decker buses, but these have not yet been delivered owing to delay in delivery.

Ferries

The Star Ferry Co., Ltd., operates a passenger ferry service across the narrowest part of the harbour, a distance of approximately one mile, from a point in the centre of Victoria to Tsim Sha Tsui at the southern extremity of the Kowloon Peninsula. Six vessels are in service and operate daily for 19 hours. A five-minute service is maintained during the day, and a regular service until well past midnight, the duration of the crossing being eight minutes. Approximately 36 million passengers were carried in 131,000 crossings during the year, the average daily load being 98,000 persons.

A heavy increase in both passenger and vehicular traffic marked the 30th year of operation of the Hong Kong and Yaumati Ferry Co., Ltd., which now maintains five ferry services inside the harbour, and five services to outlying dis- tricts. Over 75,000,000 passengers and 1,076,000 vehicles were carried across the harbour during 1953, an increase over the previous year of nearly 3,900,000 passengers and 61,600 vehicles. Considerable improvements in the services were also made during the year by the addition of new and more efficient vessels and by renovations to ferry terminals.

The Jordan Road-Wanchai service is now maintained by a double-ended diesel ferry of the largest type, built in 1952, which carries 750 passengers, and by five new Scottish diesel ferries built by Messrs. Yarrows, of Glasgow. These vessels were launched, engined and fully completed by the Hong Kong Shipyard Ltd., during the year and each is designed to carry 650 passengers. They have Crossley 5-cylinder H.R.N. diesel engines giving 425 H.P. at 340 R.P.M. and a speed of over 10 knots, which enables them to complete the trip from Jordan Road to Wanchai in under 12 minutes.

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