When thousands descended on Hung Hom station to mark the opening of the new terminus
Plans to relocate the Kowloon-Canton Railway terminus from Tsim Sha Tsui to Hung Hom were announced in 1960, with the project finally completed 15 years later
“‘First train’ draws crowds,” ran a South China Morning Post headline on December 1, 1975. “The new Hunghom railway station began its first day of operation yesterday drawing tens of thousands of people who turned up to take a train ride to the New Territories,” the story continued.
“The first train left the Hunghom terminus at 8.26 am. Souvenir tickets […] were sold out in 15 minutes [...] all tickets issued for the train were endorsed with ‘First Train from Hunghom’”.
On November 25, the Post had provided extensive coverage of the inauguration of the terminus, which was “officially opened yesterday by the Acting Governor, Sir Denys Roberts”. Describing it as “the latest addition to the modernisation of Hongkong’s transport system”, the report added that the terminus cost HK$150 million.
Roberts noted that Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR) passenger traffic had quadrupled to more than 14 million a year over the previous two decades and that goods traffic had grown about ninefold to 1.2 million tons over the same period.
“The new station will ultimately be capable of handling more than 10,000 passengers an hour and up to 5,000 tons of freight a day,” the Post explained. “It occupies a 30-acre [12-hectare] site adjoining the Kowloon end of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel and is accessible on foot and by road and ferry. A link-up with the Mass Transit Railway, now under construction, has also been proposed.”
