Published : 2024-12-20

On December 20, 2003, the West Rail Line of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) in Hong Kong was officially opened.

The West Rail Line, which costed over HKD 40 billion, connects the northwest New Territories and West Kowloon. It reduces the travel time between the two places to just 37 minutes.

The main purpose for constructing the West Rail Line was to ease the transportation pressure on Tuen Mun Road and Castle Peak Road.

Additionally, there were already railway plans for two other new towns, Tseung Kwan O and Ma On Shan, which were developed concurrently with Tuen Mun.

The Hong Kong Government had planned to build a northwest railway as early as the 1970s, but there was no final decision.

By the mid-1990s, the extremely busy Tuen Mun Road had a major traffic accident, where a massive rock fell off due to a landslide, hitting a small vehicle and killing the driver.

After this accident, the Government expedited the study of the route for the northwest railway.

They eventually chose to have the railway start from Hung Hom, pass through Tsuen Wan, Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai to reach Tuen Mun, serving multiple areas.

The original representative colour of the West Rail Line was pink. After the two major railway companies in Hong Kong merged their operations in 2007, it was changed to rose red to avoid confusion with the Disneyland Resort Line.

After the full completion of the Tuen Ma Line in 2021, the West Rail Line officially became history, and its colour was changed to brown, which was the colour of the Ma On Shan Line.