Found over at Wikipedia – a scale model of a MTR works train, located in their head office in Kowloon Bay, photographed by TeaLaiumens.
Photo by TeaLaiumens, via Wikimedia Commons
Both are hauled by Brush Traction battery-electric locomotives, the plaque on the display case indicating that the foreground train is for overhead line maintenance, the train behind for track cleaning.
Here is an interesting find on Wikipedia – a MTR diesel locomotive hauling a freight train on the Chinese side of the border at Shenzhen, photographed by Baycrest back in February 2010.
Photo by Baycrest, via Wikimedia Commons
The resolution of the photo is quite low, but I can just make out the locomotive identity – KCR #61, a 2000hp EMD G26CU diesel-electric locomotive that entered service in 1976.
As for the reason for the MTR crossing the border into mainland China, I previously believed that freight trains from the Mainland usually stopped at Lo Wu to swap their locomotives, and to rearrange the wagons into the correct order for the trip south, but these photos from 2001 suggest the exchange could also occur on the Chinese side, in the freight yard approximately three and a half kilometers north of Shenzhen railway station.
Footnote
June 2010 marked the final freight train in Hong Kong. The diesel locomotives once used on these services are now only used to operate works trains on the MTR East Rail line.
I’ve written about the story of the Kowloon-Canton Railway EMD G12 diesel locomotives before – but what about a closer look at their Australian connection?
We start with my history of their time in Hong Kong.
The former Kowloon-Canton Railway owned a number of diesel locomotives for use on their railway between Kowloon and the border with China at Lo Wu. The two first diesels (numbers 51 and 52) entered service in 1955, being EMD G12s ordered from Clyde Engineering in Australia. Three more locomotives (numbered 53-55) soon followed, enabling the end of the regular steam locomotives use on passenger trains in 1957.
The October 1955 edition of Railway Transportation covered the construction of the first two locomotives – you can find the full article on the ‘KCR Information Station’ website:
Australian-Built Diesel Locomotives Enter Service on Hong Kong Railway
Two general-purpose, diesel-electric locomotives built by the Clyde Engineering Co. Pty Ltd., of Granville, NSW, for the British section of the Kowloon Canton Railway, arrived recently in Hong Kong in the vessel “Eastern” and placed in service early in September.
The vessel was met on the arrival by the Australian government Trade Commissioner (Mr. H. C. Menzies) and Mr. I. B. Trevor, C.B.E., M.C., General Manager of the British Section of the Kowloon Canton Railway. A number of press representatives and photographers were also present to record the arrival of the first diesel electric locomotives ever seen in Hong Kong.
Before being shipped to Hong Kong, these two locomotives underwent testing on the NSW Government Railways system. This photo from the John Buckland collection shows one of these test trains, the double headed locomotives hauling a short freight train on the steeply graded Illawarra line.
Buckland collection, PIC P861/1227 LOC Box N2 Folder 1/nla.obj-155370035
The new diesels then went to work in Hong Kong, hauling both freight and passenger trains.
No. 54 at the northern Beacon Hill Tunnel portal near Tai Wai, sometime between the 1957 and the modernisation work of the late 1970s (photo via this blog).
With electrification of the KCR line being commissioned in 1983 the diesel fleet no longer hauled passenger trains, instead being used to move freight to and from the border with China, as well as hauling maintenance trains on the line.
By the late 1990s the EMD G12 fleet had been retired: in 2004 locomotive KCR 51 was restored and placed into the Hong Kong Railway Museum, the other four classmates being purchased by Chicago Freight Car Leasing Australia (CFCLA). The four locomotives were loaded onto an Australian-bound ship at Hung Hom in October 2005.
Tai Wah Sea & Land Heavy Transportation photo
They arrived in the Australian city of Adelaide in December 2005, where they were sent to the Islington Workshops to be refurbished.
They re-entered service as TL class, numbered TL152 through TL155.
I photographed TL154 in my home town of Melbourne in 2008, shunting freight wagons around a workshop.
Quite often they played ‘yard ornament’ beside the turntable.
While other classmates were hired out to freight operator EL Zorro, who used to to haul their containerised mineral sands trains.
As well as grain services.
Following the collapse of El Zorro in 2013 the TL class now see little use, having been worked hard and in need of heavy overhaul.
The exception is TL152 – now owned by a private group called K&AB Rail, it has been seen hauling railfan specials in western Victoria.
Footnote
If you take a look inside the cab of a TL class, you can see the Hong Kong heritage thanks to Chinese text on the control stand.
More photos
Browsing the South China Morning Post website recently I came across a strange sight – what looked to be a MTR train overhanging a building!
Thankfully the photo caption explained what was actually happening:
A mock-up of an MTR train, part of a promotion by Mitsukoshi department store in Causeway Bay in 1985, to coincide with the opening of the MTR’s Island Line. Photo: P Y Tang
Phew!
Footnote
The best known example of a train crashing through a wall and onto the ground below is the Montparnasse derailment of 1895 – better known as the ‘Oh Shit!’ poster.
There are actually a few places in Hong Kong where a MTR train could do the same thing. The first is Tuen Mun station, where the elevated West Rail line ends above a nullah (canal).
The other being the elevated Chai Wan station, eastern terminus of the Island Line.
Both tracks don’t see trains run on them – they exist for the sole purpose of providing an overrun zone for trains that fail to stop at the terminating stations.
Most of the Hong Kong MTR runs underground in tunnels, but there are sections of track open to the outside world. Here is a list.
Island Line
Entirely in tunnel, except for:
Tsuen Wan Line
Entirely in tunnel, except for:
Kwun Tong Line
Entirely in tunnel, except for:
Tseung Kwan O Line
Entirely in tunnel, except for:
South Island Line
Entirely in tunnel, except for:
Tung Chung Line and Airport Express
Entire line above ground, except for:
Disneyland Resort Line
Entire line at grade except for short tunnel south of Sunny Bay station.
West Rail Line
At grade after exiting the Tai Lam Tunnel in the New Territories, continues on viaduct to terminus at Tuen Mun.
East Rail Line
Entire line at grade, on embankments or in cuttings, except for:
Ma On Shan Line
Entire line is either viaduct or at grade.
Further reading
The MTR之今昔 website has a full track diagram of the MTR network, including detail of where tracks are in tunnels.
