Kowloon-Canton Railway
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| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Locale | New Territories, New Kowloon, Kowloon |
| Transit type | |
| Number of lines | 4 (3 railway lines, 1 light rail system) |
| Number of stations | 33 railway stations, 68 light rail stations |
| Daily ridership | about 1.49 million (2006) |
| Operation | |
| Began operation | 1 October 1910 (operation taken over by MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL) since 2 December 2007) |
| Ended operation | 1 December 2007 (become parts of the MTR) |
| Operator(s) | KCR Corporation (1982-2007) / MTRCL since 2007 |
| Technical | |
| System length | 35 km (22 mi) |
| Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) (standard gauge) |
The Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR; Traditional Chinese: 九廣鐵路) is a railway network in Hong Kong. It is owned, and was operated by the Kowloon–Canton Railway Corporation until 2007. It provides rapid transit services, a light rail system and feeder bus routes within Hong Kong, and intercity passenger and freight train services to Mainland China.
While still owned by its previous operator, Kowloon–Canton Railway Corporation (which is wholly owned by the Hong Kong Government), the network has been operated by the MTR Corporation Limited under a 50-year, extendible, service concession since 2 December 2007. Steps have been taken to assimilate the network into the same faring system of the MTR, and gates between the two networks were removed in several stages in 2008.
In 2006, the local KCR passenger train network (i.e. intercity services excluded) recorded an annual ridership of 544 million.
After the Chinese civil war and the victory of the Communists in mainland China in 1949, through-trains were no longer able to cross the border until the service was resumed in 1979.
The British Section of the original Kowloon–Canton Railway was originally operated by a department within the Hong Kong Government. Following the government's plan to corporatise the operation of the railway, the Kowloon–Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) was established in December 1982, with the government remaining as the sole shareholder.
With the development and urbanisation of the New Territories, the British Section became an important corridor to connect the new towns in eastern New Territories with urban Kowloon. Electrification and conversion to a dual-track system was completed in 1984. Since then, the suburban rail became much more metro-like. Frequent service was provided, and in the 1990s trains were refurbished to provide fewer seats and more standing places.
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