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The West Rail is one of the three lines of the KCRC network in Hong Kong. It starts at Nam Cheong station in Sham Shui Po and ends at Tuen Mun station in Tuen Mun.
Currently the West Rail provides local service on its own. No inter-city service is offered, making it effectively more like a metro instead of a commuter railway, although it was built in commuter railway standard, and was expected to accommodate other trains in future.
History
A railway to the northwestern New Territories from the urban area in Kowloon was proposed in the early 1990s. Both the MTR and the KCRC submitted plans to the government, but finally the KCRC's proposal to Tin Shui Wai new town was selected. However, several major accidents on Tuen Mun Road made residents in Tuen Mun requesting a railway connection within the centre of the new town of Tuen Mun. This made the path in the final decision deviated from the original plan (terminating at the centre of Tin Shui Wai new town) and terminated near Tuen Mun Town Centre.
The first phase of construction included a double-track commuter railway connecting Tuen Mun station and Nam Cheong stations. This system has been in operation since 20 December 2003.
Property of the Railway
The track for the West Rail was laid underground only between Mei Foo and Kam Sheung Road stations. North of Kam Sheung Road station, the track emerges to the surface, and there is a depot between the tunnel portion and the station. The train is actually at ground level south of Mei Foo station, but the covered tracks makes most passengers feel like they are travelling underground. The rest of the line was built on a viaduct, which was constructed so that there is room for an emergency passage.
Situations when the Railway was first opened
Originally, the KCRC expected to have around 120,000 passengers use the line every day, but unsatisfactory connection between stations and the areas they serve meant that the number of commuters choosing to use the West Rail remained far short of the goal after opening. The KCRC was also blamed for its route planning and forceful reduction of bus service, which had mainly been provided by Kowloon Motor Bus after operation.
Furthermore, due to frequent breakdown, the chairman of KCRC, Michael Tien, announced that if the performance of West Rail does not improve, he will consider resigning. Although one-month passes were introduced on 1 August 2004, and the daily passenger capacity was increased to 150,000, there is still a long way to go before the KCRC's goal of 200,000 passengers is met.
Michael Tien announced that further discount of 20% will be cancelled due to quick recovery of economy and the increase of passenger capacity to 170,000, but the one-month pass concession will be extended for a half year. e.g., from Tuen Mun to Nam Cheong, the new fare will be HK$14.4. The new faretable will be effective on December 20, 2004. If there is a drastic decrease of passenger capacity, other promotions may be started. Tien claimed that the probability of this situation will be low. The other reason is that the line made a loss of HK$200 million.
Future Expansions
The West Rail will be extended both to the south and north in the future. A new branch will go from Kam Sheung Road to Lok Ma Chau, and to Sheung Shui via Kwu Tung. The southern link will be an extension from Nam Cheong station to the East Rail Hung Hom station via Tsim Sha Tsui East with an intermediate station to be called West Kowloon located east of Kowloon station on the Airport Express.
There are suggestions to use the tracks of the West Rail to accommodate the future Regional Express to Guangzhou via Shenzhen.
Stations
This is a list of all the stations on West Rail. The coloured boxes holding the station names represent the unique colour motif for the station.
Notes
Improvement solution of signalling system
In August 2005, Michael Tien announced that 90% of breakdowns of the signalling system are due to failure of axle counters. 45% of the whole line is elevated, which makes power lines easier to be hit by lightning, therefore causing such breakdowns. The average distance between two stations is 3km, which results in a longer time for engineers to repair the signalling system. The most serious breakdown happened on 21 July 2005 and caused a delay of up to 40 minutes, which exceeds the total journey time of 30 minutes. Therefore, West Rail was thought to have more signalling system failures.
For this reason, KCRC decided to throw over HK$10M to improve the signalling system, including hiring foreign railway experts and finding solutions to decrease the down-time.
See also
External links
"KCR West Rail"