The Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR; ) was a railway network in Hong Kong.Legislative Council information paper CB(1)357/07-08(01), THB(T) CR 8/986/00, CB(1)1749/07-08(01) It was owned and operated by the Kowloon–Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) until 2007. Rapid transit services, a light rail system, feeder bus routes within Hong Kong, and intercity passenger and freight train services to China on the KCR network, have been operated by the MTR Corporation since 2007.
While still owned by its previous operator, the KCR network (which is wholly owned by the Hong Kong Government through the KCRC) has been operated by the MTR Corporation Limited under a 50-year, extensible, service concession since 2 December 2007. The two companies have merged their local metro lines into one unified fare system. Immediately after the merger, steps were taken to integrate the network into the same fare system as the MTR, and gates between the two networks were removed in several stages in 2008. Although the MTR Corporation is a listed company, the Hong Kong Government is the controlling shareholder with a stake of about 75%.
In 2006, the local KCR local passenger train network (i.e. intercity services excluded) recorded an annual ridership of 544 million.
History
19th century During the 19th century, the western colonial powers competed with each other to establish and maintain commercial and political spheres of influence in China. The Colony of Hong Kong held a vital position in protecting the British Empire's trading interests in South China. The idea of connecting Hong Kong and China with a railway was first proposed to prominent Hong Kong businessmen in March 1864 by a British railway engineer, Sir Rowland MacDonald Stephenson, who had considerable experience of developing railways in India. The minutes of the committee of the Chamber of Commerce meeting in Hong Kong, where a letter setting out his ideas was considered on 7 March 1864, stated that "the opinions of the Chamber in respect to his suggestions should be recorded in the form of a letter, to the effect that the Committee deem it essential for the advancement of the project that short lines of railway should at first only be tried, and that it is not advisable at present to interfere with any water communications which are already established and can generally be worked more cheaply than railway traffic."Kowloon–Canton Railway (British Section) – A History, Robert J. Phillips, An Urban Council Publication, 1990
The main reason for this decision, which effectively killed MacDonald Stephenson's idea, was that many of the businessmen concerned had a personal interest in protecting their investments in the established shipping companies that enjoyed a monopoly on carriage of passengers and goods into and out of China. It took a further 30 years before the idea of building a railway from Hong Kong to China was again given serious consideration. In the last decade of the 19th century, increasing diplomatic and trade activity by France in Guangzhou (Canton) and the granting of a concession to Belgian interests to construct a railway from Beijing to Hankou, led to diplomatic and commercial concerns from the British about protecting Hong Kong as the major trading port for South China. , Qing governor of the Guangdong province, also made at the time a similar proposal for a railway connecting Guangzhou with the rural hamlet of Sham Shui Po just outside the British border. Britain was at the time vastly expanding her sphere of influence in the Far East and was striving to obtain the rest of Hong Kong up to the Sham Chun River. Li saw this chance as a method to develop Sham Shui Po as another probable trading hub. Although Li did correctly prophesy the village's prosperity following to the annexation of the New Territories in 1898, Li's proposal was eventually rejected by the Central Government in favour of the budget being allocated to the much anticipated Guangzhou–Hankou railway. The British, however, caught up with this proposal and the idea of a railway similar to this was first considered with much interest.
The British Government extracted a number of railway concessions from the Chinese Government for the British & Chinese Corporation, a joint venture formed in 1898 between the trading company of Jardine Matheson & Co. and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. These concessions included the right to construct and operate a railway from Kowloon to Guangzhou that would link to the Beijing–Hankou–Guangzhou line.
While the British & Chinese Corporation undertook a preliminary survey of the proposed route of the line in 1899, the financial uncertainties created by the Boxer Rebellion in China (1899–1901) and the Boer War (1899–1902) in South Africa made it difficult for the corporation to raise funds for the project. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, the Hong Kong Government under the leadership of the colony's governor, Sir Henry Blake, decided that urgent action was required.
1904–1945: Construction and early years Discussions between the Colonial Office in London, the Hong Kong Government and the British & Chinese Corporation, led to an agreement in late 1904 that the Hong Kong Government would undertake the financing, construction and operation of the section of the line within Hong Kong. The remaining section to Guangzhou would be financed through a loan raised by the British & Chinese Corporation on behalf of the Chinese Government, which would operate the section after its construction by the corporation.
Settling the detailed financing arrangements for the British and Chinese sections proved to be complicated because the funding of the British Section (as it became known) depended on the raising of the loan for the Chinese Section. The arrangements were finally ratified by the Hong Kong Government's passage of the Railway Loans Ordinance in 1905, clearing the way for construction of the British Section. It took until 1907, however, for the loan agreement for the Chinese Section to be concluded, with the financing being provided by way of a bond issue floated in London in April of the same year.
The importance attached to the project was reflected in a speech made to the Hong Kong Legislative Council by the colonial governor, Sir Frederick Lugard, in 1908:
Two routes were suggested for the British Section, a western route of about from the tip of Kowloon peninsula via Tsuen Wan to Castle Peak Bay and thence to Yuen Long and the border with China, and a more direct eastern route of about requiring tunnelling through the Kowloon hills and thence to the border via Tide Cove (Sha Tin), Tai Po, Fanling and Sheung Shui. Following a detailed survey in 1905, the eastern route was proposed. Although the formal approval of the Colonial Office in London was not given until February 1906, the Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan, had anticipated a positive outcome and had already instructed the Public Works Department to start earthworks on the route from Tai Po Market to Fanling in December 1905.
The initial estimate for the project was HK$5,053,274, which included the cost of excavating a tunnel through the Kowloon hills at Beacon Hill and reclamation in Kowloon for a terminus. However, underestimation of the challenges, changes in design, depreciation of the Hong Kong dollar against the pound sterling (much of the equipment had to be imported from Britain), difficulties in recruiting suitable labour coupled with a high mortality and sickness rate amongst the workers (malaria, beri beri and dysentery were endemic in Hong Kong at that time) and right-of-way land acquisition costs greatly pushed up the final cost of the project.
The most difficult part of the project was the construction of the Beacon Hill Tunnel, which ended up costing about one quarter of the whole project. Together with the construction of the Sha Tau Kok line, a two-foot narrow-gauge branch railway from Fanling to Sha Tau Kok (making use of the rails and rolling stock used in the construction of the main line and later closed in April 1928), the final cost was HK$12,296,929, making it one of the most expensive railways in the world and, as costs escalated, the subject of much concern in both Hong Kong and London.
Although the design called for the construction of only a single track of a standard gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches (1,435 mm), an important decision made was to ensure that as far as possible the right-of-way of the railway, i.e. all bridges, cuttings, and embankments (with the exception of the tunnels to reduce budget), allowed for the laying of a future second track. This decision, although it might have seemed unnecessarily costly at the time, proved of benefit some 75 years later when the railway was finally double-tracked.
The railway was formally opened on Saturday, 1 October 1910, but without a terminus, this event being officially recorded by way of a notice in the following Friday's Hong Kong Government Gazette.
Some of the harbour at the south of the Kowloon peninsula, between Signal Hill (Blackhead Point) and Hung Hom, had taken place using material excavated from the route and carried to the site by a two-foot gauge railway. However, the final decision to locate the terminus at the tip of Kowloon peninsula was not made until 1910, and the terminus was only fully completed and commissioned in March 1916, although the platforms themselves were put into service in 1914.Kowloon–Canton Railway (British Section) Annual Reports for 1914 to 1916
The railway opened in 1910 with a number of temporary stations. Part of a godown (warehouse) next to the site of the present day Star Ferry pier in Tsim Sha Tsui was rented and converted into a passenger station with rails to it laid down Salisbury Road from Signal Hill. Temporary stations were built at Hung Hom and Lo Wu, with permanent stations being built at Sha Tin, Fanling and Tai Po (later named Tai Po Kau), and a flag stop at Tai Po Market (aka.Tai Po New Market, Tai Wo Market) which shortly became a proper station for passenger service. 1910 the Kowloon–Canton Railway owned four steam locomotives, eight coaches and 40 goods wagons.
Traffic on the new railway was at first quiet as there was little demand for passenger and freight services by the inhabitants of the then undeveloped New Territories north of Beacon Hill. Only after the Chinese Section was completed and opened in 1911 did traffic start to build up as people took advantage of the fast journey time of only 3 hours 40 minutes from Kowloon to Guangzhou.
Little changed up until the Second World War, with the commercial success of the railway being closely linked to events in China. During the defence of Hong Kong in December 1941, various bridges and tunnels were deliberately blown up by the retreating British forces. After repairs had been made, the line was operated throughout the war by the Japanese using the services of the Chinese staff who had remained after the fall of the colony. During this period the railway gradually deteriorated through lack of adequate maintenance. Rolling stock and other equipment were also sent to China for use there by the Japanese.
After the British resumed control of Hong Kong in 1945, following the defeat of Japan, the railway was in a sorry state. Initially the task of restoring the railway to a working condition rested with the military. Twelve locomotives were urgently ordered from Britain (arriving in 1946–47) and efforts focussed on bringing the railway up to a workable condition. Civilian management of the railway was again resumed in 1946.
1945–1982: Post-war development and electrification