Up to 5,000 tickets each way per day for Hong Kong’s high-speed rail link with mainland China went on sale from noon on Thursday, with services set to resume on Sunday after a three-year suspension because of the coronavirus pandemic.
At the preliminary stage of resumption, passengers can mainly travel to Shenzhen and Guangzhou, with new stops available at Dongguan, Dongguan South and Guangzhou East, on top of some original ones.
“At the early resumption period, we will only sell up to 5,000 tickets per day heading north. We will review the operation flow and tourist demand soon after reopening to see if we need to sell more tickets and add more trains, including long-haul ones,” Secretary for Transport and Logistics Lam Sai-hung said.
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“There is always demand for trains heading to Guangzhou and we believe the Guangzhou East station will be attractive to travellers. There are also a lot of new attractions, such as the M+ museum and Palace Museum, near the West Kowloon terminus and we believe tourists will like them.”
Lam said it would be crucial for services to resume to Shenzhen North and Guangzhou South stations, as these two original stops were important links to the wider mainland express-rail network, which allowed passengers to travel to different parts of the country.
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Thirty-eight trains will head north from the city, including six to the new Guangzhou East station, and 39 to Hong Kong, according to railway operator the MTR Corporation. This is about half of pre-pandemic levels, when about 70 short- and 13 long-haul journeys were available each way daily.
The 26km (16 miles) city section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link was in service for about 16 months before it closed in late January 2020 because of the pandemic. The trains ran from the West Kowloon terminus through to Shenzhen and south Guangzhou.
“We believe 10,000 tickets [for both directions] per day at the preliminary stage are adequate to cope with the demand considering traffic since the border reopened,” said Jeny Yeung Mei-chun, the MTR Corp’s Hong Kong transport services director, noting tens of thousands of passengers had travelled in pre-pandemic times.
There was no definite timetable to resume long-haul destinations at the moment, but the MTR Corp would closely monitor the situation and make changes, she added.
Passengers can buy tickets for the next 15 days via various platforms, including the mainland’s 12306 website and its mobile app, as well as at the West Kowloon terminus, which will reopen at 2pm, according to the rail company. A separate website set up by the MTR Corp before the pandemic no longer functions.
Outbound passengers must provide a negative result for a Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test taken within 48 hours, and complete the mainland’s health declaration form. Passengers must also wear a mask at all times, but flammable disinfectants such as hand sanitisers are not allowed.
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Travellers will have to go through real-name identity, luggage and PCR result checks, followed by mainland customs before boarding under co-location arrangements.
Passengers holding e-tickets can link them with their travel documents upon purchase, allowing them to pass through the gates with the document only.
Those travelling south will be reminded to carry their PCR test results before boarding on the mainland side, while MTR staff will help to check their records when they arrive in Hong Kong. Passengers with invalid results will be sent back to the mainland.
The West Kowloon terminus will be the latest border control point to reopen after seven others resumed operations following the return of quarantine-free travel between Hong Kong and the mainland on January 8. The mainland also started issuing visas to international travellers for quarantine-free visits for the first time in three years on the same day.
Travellers crossing the border using the West Kowloon terminus are not subject to a daily quota. As long as they can buy a ticket, they are free to travel.
Authorities at present allow 50,000 people a day to travel in either direction at the land crossings at Shenzhen Bay, Man Kam To and Lok Ma Chau railway station.
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Meanwhile, Lam did not make it clear whether the historic cross-border intercity through-train services linking the city’s Hung Hom station with Guangzhou East would be axed.
“Guangzhou East is located near a traditional business area, and used to be served by the intercity through-train service. With the high-speed rail link, people who want to go directly there can do so now,” he said.
“We will review the new services offered by the high-speed railway before making a final decision on the future of the intercity through-train services.”
Separately, Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung said about 520,000 slots in the travel quota, or one-sixth of the amount for two months, had so far been booked and authorities were reviewing whether more should be provided for special days, such as during the Lunar New Year period, when most spots had been snapped up.
Lam Wai-keung, chairman of the Federation of Railway Trade Unions, said the MTR had started trials with 11 to 12 short-haul trains without passengers every day since Sunday and they had run smoothly.
“In the past few days, the farthest routes we have tried were to Guangzhou East, Guangzhou South and Shenzhen. It’s important for drivers to get familiar with the route, especially the new Guangzhou East station,” Lam told a radio programme.
Lam said there would be enough drivers when operations resumed, but concerns remained about manpower shortages on other lines which had spared staff to support the high-speed rail.
In response, the MTR Corp said it would continue with its hiring procedures and deploy manpower appropriately to ensure train services would not be affected.
Additional reporting by Oscar Liu
More from South China Morning Post:
- Hong Kong to relaunch high-speed rail service to mainland China on Sunday
- High-speed rail tickets to be available 3 days before reopening of Hong Kong’s border with mainland China: MTR Corp
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