Planning

A railway to the northwestern New Territories from the urban area in Kowloon was recommended as early as 1978 in a Tuen Mun Transport Study by Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick & Partner;^[7] by the early 1990s, the surge of commuter towns in Yuen Long and Tuen Mun had frequently brought road networks to a standstill, as urban populations spilled over to the bedroom communities while keeping their jobs in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.

The 1994 Hong Kong Government Railway Development Strategy report envisaged a domestic passenger service between the Northwestern New Territories (NWNT) and urban Kowloon, a cross-boundary passenger service for passengers travelling between Hong Kong and Mainland China, and container freight transport between ports in Mainland China and Hong Kong.^[8]

In January 1995, the Government invited the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) to submit a proposal for the design, construction and operation of the proposed Western Corridor Railway. KCRC submitted a full proposal in November 1995, as did MTRC; twelve months later, the Government adopted KCRC's proposal.^[8] Tuen Mun residents clamoured for a direct connection (or failing that, a costly alternative coastal alignment), and the terminus was duly extended along Tuen Mun Nullah. Along with the Light Rail network, which was reconfigured as a feeder system, the new railway was designed to serve 1.08 million residents in northwestern New Territories, 25% of whom lived within walking distance to stations compared to 80% along the Tseung Kwan O line.^[9]p. 39

In August 1996, the KCR Corporation set up the West Rail Steering Committee to oversee all aspects of the project. Originally conceived and carried through to the technical design phase as a 12-car system, paralleling the KCRC-operated East Rail line, the West Rail project was re-evaluated by the KCRC in autumn of 1998; the present nine-car capacity (of which trains of eight-cars are currently run) is a result of improved ultimate headway from 120 seconds to 90.^[10]

The first phase of construction included a double-track commuter railway connecting Tuen Mun station and Nam Cheong station in newly reclaimed West Kowloon, at a cost of HK$46.4 billion^[9] in 2002 prices which was some 28% lower than the original estimate in 1998;^[11] later reports cite $51.7 billion in money of the day prices.^[8]

Initial operation

Originally, the KCRC expected the West Rail to have a daily ridership of about 340,000 upon commissioning and 500,000 by 2011.^[12] Actual figures hovered around 100,000 by April 2004,^[13] however, and rose to 170,000 by the end of the year following a series of discounts.^[14] Frequent breakdowns (by local standards: 24 incidents in 2004 caused a delay of eight minutes or more)^[15] led KCRC Chairman Michael Tien to announce that he would consider resigning if service performance failed to improve.

Some 30,000 flats were originally planned to be built along the route between 2006 and 2011,^[16] only to be put on hold when the property market crashed. The commuter line was built after the new towns in north-west New Territories, along with road-based transport networks, were nearing completion. Attempts to boost patronage were made by cutting longstanding bus services, which in turn necessitated government compensation to private bus operator Kowloon Motor Bus.^[17]

Kowloon Southern Link

On 16 August 2009, the Kowloon Southern Link from Nam Cheong to East Tsim Sha Tsui station was opened. At the same time, the existing segment between East Tsim Sha Tsui station and Hung Hom station was transferred from the East Rail line to the West Rail line, and both services now terminated in the south and interchanged at Hung Hom.^[18]

Rolling stock and technology

The West Rail line was served by 33 eight-car MTR SP1900 EMUs built by a Japanese consortium of Kinki Sharyo and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, of which 22 were originally ordered by KCRC as seven-car trains for the initial opening of the line (the same model was ordered in 12-car and 4-car variants for the East Rail and the original Ma On Shan line, respectively).^[19] Up to 26 sets run during the morning peak service with a 171-second headway; MTRC specifies capacities of 52 seated and 286 standing passengers per car.^[3] They were the only trains in use until March 2020, when a newly built eight-car East West line train, manufactured by CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles, entered service on the line. Both of these models have a maximum running speed of 130 kilometres per hour (81 mph) and travel at an average speed of 56 kilometres per hour (35 mph) on the West Rail line. Unlike the trains on the East Rail line, there are no first-class compartments. All trains are serviced at Pat Heung depot and are equipped with the SelTrac IS moving block signalling system for train protection; this was among the earliest applications of the technology on a high-capacity, heavy-rail line worldwide.^[20]

Beginning in January 2016, all 7-car trains were converted to 8-car trains in anticipation of the Sha Tin to Central Link (see § Future development); this was completed in May 2018.^[21] During the transition period with both 7-car and 8-car trains in service, passengers had to pay attention to the platform LCD screens and announcements to queue at the right part of the platforms.^[22]

Theoretical capacity

The line increased capacity between the northwest New Territories and urban areas by about 80%, and on the Tuen Mun-Yuen Long Corridor by about 200%.^[9] Crowding on trains–or a lack thereof–has been a matter of heated public debate since its inauguration, as the government has no specific indicator for measuring crowdedness in train compartments as of 2014.^[23]

Japanese train manufacturer Kinki Sharyo quoted car capacities (standing plus seating) upward of 430 for cab cars and 452 for the rest.^[24] KCRC's stress tests prior to the system's début specified a crush-load capacity of 2345, or 335^[4] passengers in longitudinal seating for each of its seven cars, which corresponds to seven passengers per square metre^[25] in line with MTRC standards.^[26] This contrasts with a worst-case allowable planning standard of 5 pax/square metre in the United States.^[27]

In industry journals, KCRC engineers and academics quoted ultimate limits upwards of 100,000 under 105-second headways,^[8][9] in nine-car configuration; however, both post-merger MTRC^[3] and government planning consultants report that the 'designed maximum one-hour carrying capacity' is actually 64,000, a figure described in Hansard footnotes as 'calculated in terms of the highest train frequency allowed with the existing signaling system';^[28] in the consultants' report, 2011 average loading from Kam Sheung Road to Tsuen Wan West during the busiest morning peak hour stood at 65% (of the "one-direction passenger capacity of the trains operated along the railway line", the exact figure of which was unspecified):^[29] consultants thus referred to "under-utilisation of train capacity"^[29]3.11. (The same consultant also forecast 50,000 pax/hr in 2031, given a peak service of 28 tph at 75,000 pax/hr capacity.)

Actual ridership

In present operations, parliamentary briefs state that the Kowloon Southern Link raised the one-hour carrying capacity from 39,900 to 46,900 pax/hr when headway was shortened from 3.5 minutes to 3.^[30]

2013 LegCo submissions from the MTRC confirmed that the capacity was at 46,900 pax/hr, with average train loading during morning peak hours on weekdays (from 6.30am to 9am) at around 70%.^[31] Extrapolated, 4.5 pax/square metre would translate to 'maximal overcrowding' by London Underground authorities' definitions;^[32] however, James Blake, then Senior Director/Capital Projects of KCRC, noted that 6 pax/square metre was used in demand-capacity projections at peak times, and "this figure would be quite acceptable to the ordinary travelling public even at peak times"^[26]p. 11.

In December 2013, the Transport and Housing Bureau submitted detailed definitions to legislators regarding average train loading without specifying the figures:^[33] they were eventually released in February 2014^[34] in a Legco subcommittee submission. It recognised that 6 pax/square metre design capacity standards were not achieved in actual operations, and that the service level of new MTR lines is pitched at 4 pax/square metre service benchmark. At 4 pax/square metre, the critical link on the line ran at 99% capacity (34,600 pax/hr) in 2013, partly due to lengthy turnaround times at the present Hung Hom terminus which depressed realizable carrying capacity by 20%.

Platform screen doors

All West Rail line stations have platform screen doors. The only exception was Hung Hom station, which shared its platform with the East Rail line until it was moved underground on 20 June 2021.

Notes

Train explosion

At 9:15am on 14 February 2007, a passenger train broke down when one of the voltage transformers mounted on the train roof exploded. This incident occurred in the southbound direction in the tunnel between Kam Sheung Road and Tsuen Wan West, about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) north of Tsuen Wan West. Around 650 passengers had to evacuate through the dark tunnel to the station, while around 340 people returned to the ground through a ventilation shaft at Chai Wan Kok. Eleven people were sent to hospital. Train services returned to normal after 4 hours.^[38]

It was suspected that the overheated transformer caused its insulating oil to vaporise, thus causing the explosion. The train-borne circuit breaker, which was connected in parallel to the voltage transformer to the train pantograph, was not designed to isolate this kind of fault. After the incident, all SP1900 EMUs had their voltage transformers replaced. The new voltage transformers are German-made dry type transformers, which will not catch fire, even if they fail.

As an apology, the West Rail was opened for free rides on 21 February 2007, the first working day after the Chinese New Year holiday.^[39]

Yuen Long attack

On the night of 21 July 2019, during ongoing protests in the territory, Yuen Long station was stormed by armed men, and 45 people were injured.^[40]