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Tracking down a bit of history

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The remains of a railway track buried for more than 50 years has been unearthed by a team of young archaeologists from Chiu Lut Sau Memorial Secondary School.

The group of 10 Form Seven students discovered the imprint left by a single-track railway, which was used to carry passengers between Fanling and Sha Tau Kok from 1912 until 1928.

The group's archaeological detective work paid off, winning them first place in the senior category of the sixth inter- school local history projects competition.

With a theme of Transport in Hong Kong, the competition attracted entries from hundreds of students from 53 schools. It was organised by Hong Kong Museum of History and the Education Department.

After reading an article about the abandoned railway in a newspaper, the group was inspired to investigate further.

'We thought it [the railway] was mysterious when we first read the article about it in Ming Pao, and so we chose it as our topic,' Ho Ka-lai, 18, a member of the winning group said.

Starting from this first hint of the track's existence, the young archaeologists spent six months scouring old newspapers, annual reports and maps for further clues about this forgotten railway.

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