ENG-2004 — Page 319

Transport 269

The 3.5-kilometre Disneyland Resort Line will operate initially as a single-track railway providing a shuttle service between a new MTR station at Hong Kong Disneyland and a new MTR station at Sunny Bay where passengers can interchange with the existing Tung Chung Line. The rail line is under construction and is planned to open in mid-2005 to tie in with the opening of the Disneyland theme park.

The 3.8-kilometre Kowloon Southern Link will connect East Rail and the West Rail at the southern tip of the Kowloon Peninsula. Upon completion, passengers will be able to travel through East Rail and West Rail via Hung Hom.

The Sha Tin to Central Link will form a new strategic rail corridor from Sha Tin to the Central Business District on Hong Kong Island via the proposed South East Kowloon Development area. The latest proposal for the project is to divide the railway into two sections, the East West Line connecting Tai Wai with Hung Hom to join the Kowloon Southern Link and West Rail; and the North South Line extending the existing East Rail to Central through the Fourth Rail Harbour Crossing. The detailed implementation programme will be subject to further study on feasibility and other reviews on planning development along the railway line.

Railway Projects under Planning

The Northern Link will connect West Rail at Kam Sheung Road to East Rail at Kwu Tung and to the boundary crossing point at Lok Ma Chau. The Regional Express Line (REL) is envisaged to provide an express rail service to link up the urban area with the boundary. The REL will form the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen- Hong Kong Express Rail Link (ERL), which is expected to reduce the journey time between Guangzhou and Hong Kong from the existing 100 minutes to about an hour and will have the opportunity for access to Beijing and other major Mainland cities via the future Beijing-Guangzhou Passenger Line. A joint investigative study is being conducted by the HKSAR Government and the Mainland authorities on the feasibility of the ERL. MTRCL and the KCRC had provided in their joint merger report an assessment on using West Rail and the Northern Link to form the Hong Kong section of the ERL, which they submitted to the Government for consideration in September. The KCRC is conducting a further study of this alignment of the Hong Kong section of the ERL in the context of its Northern Link study.

The latest scheme of the West Hong Kong Island Line/South Hong Kong Island Line project consists of a single track heavy rail extension of the existing Hong Kong Island Line from Sheung Wan to a new station at Sai Ying Pun together with two medium capacity rail lines, one from Sai Ying Pun to Wong Chuk Hang and the other from South Horizons to Admiralty with interchange at Wong Chuk Hang. Intermediate stations will be provided at University, Kennedy Town, Cyberport, Wah Fu, Aberdeen, Lei Tung and Ocean Park.

The Port Rail Line (PRL) involves a new freight rail connection from Lo Wu to a new terminal at Kwai Chung. PRL will allow freight from the deep hinterland of China (i.e. beyond Guangdong) to access the container ports at Kwai Chung. The viability of this line will hinge on the growth of rail-borne cross-boundary freight traffic.