 | ||
The Guangzhou–Kowloon Through Train (simplified Chinese: 广九直通车 or 港穗直通车; traditional Chinese: 廣九直通車 or 港穗直通車; pinyin: Guǎngjiǔ Zhítōngchē or Găngsuì Zhítōngchē) is an inter-city railway service between Hong Kong and Guangzhou jointly operated by the MTR Corporation of Hong Kong and the Ministry of Railways of the People's Republic of China. Services operate along the East Rail Line within Hong Kong territory, crossing the Hong Kong-Chinese border at Lo Wu, and continuing along the Guangmao Railway and Guangshen Railway in Guangdong province.
Twelve trains run in each direction every day, with a journey time of 1 hour 40 minutes.
The MTRC operates the KTT service on this route. The KTT service is provided by double decker trains, usually comprising two Premium Class carriages and five First Class carriages. A Chinese operator provides the other trains on this route.
Places served by the MTRC Guangzhou–Kowloon Through Train include:
History
The original line of the Chinese section was called Canton-Kowloon Railway (CKR) and the British section was called Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR), which later stretched a rapid transit network in the other New Territories regions in Hong Kong. The engineering partnership Messrs Arthur John Barry and John Wolfe-Barry were Consulting Engineers to the project.
The segment within Hong Kong, then a British Crown colony, was known as the British section.Construction began in 1906, and it was opened on 1 October 1910 as a single-track system, roughly corresponding to the present-day East Rail Line).
The complete railway between Kowloon in Hong Kong and the Chinese city of Canton (Guangzhou) was opened on 5 October 1911.
With the Chinese section opened in 1911, through-trains ran from the southern terminus in Tsim Sha Tsui across the border to the southern Chinese city of Canton. Trains were steam-hauled. From the one-line railroad, the KCR network was expanded to three railway lines and a light railway system, with 32 railway stations and 68 light rail stations.
At first trains on the British Section ran northwards from a temporary terminus at Kowloon Point through the eastern New Territories up to the border with China at Lo Wu. The permanent southern terminus, Kowloon Station in Tsim Sha Tsui, opened slightly later in 1914.
A narrow gauge railway operating works trains was used in the construction of the standard gauge British Section. The narrow gauge materials were later used to build the now-defunct Sha Tau Kok Railway.
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.