Cowloon Canton Railway Hong Kong Station Kowloon
Dublin Core
Title
Cowloon Canton Railway Hong Kong Station Kowloon
Subject
KN: Tsim Sha Tsui - Clock Tower
Description
As railway engineer Tymon Mellor notes in his history of the Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR), it was a man named Rowland Macdonald Stephenson who first proposed building a train from “Kowloon to Calcutta” in 1864, linking Britain’s Chinese outpost with the crown jewel of its imperial possessions. Stephenson had been responsible for laying rails across the Indian subcontinent, and he had similar ambitions for China, but he was thwarted by the Chinese government, which had little interest in building a nationwide rail network.
That left Hong Kong and its British rulers in a bind. An American company was laying out plans for a railway from Beijing to Guangzhou, via Wuhan, and a Russian-backed Belgian company set to work on a rival Beijing-Wuhan line. France was reportedly looking to shore up its influence in Guangzhou by investing in a railway, too. Britain felt like its sway in southern China was in jeopardy, so in 1899, Hong Kong-based conglomerate Jardine Matheson partnered with the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank to create the British and Chinese Corporation, which won the right to build a railway from Kowloon to Guangzhou, then known as Canton.
Work on the railway stalled for years as the corporation sought funding. In 1904, the Colonial Office in London suggested that the Hong Kong government pay for the section of the railway that would run through its territory, and the following year, a bill to fund the project was pushed through Hong Kong’s legislature at extraordinary speed. Mellor describes the funding scheme as “complicated” and remarks that, by receiving all three readings in one day, the bill to approve it made “constitutional history.”
In 1908, then-governor Frederick Lugard justified the urgency by describing the railway as “a question of preserving the predominance of Hong Kong.” If a rival railway connected Guangzhou to another deep water port, it would be an economic catastrophe for Hong Kong, whose entire reason for being was as an intermediary between the river ports of the Pearl River and the rest of the world.
The railway finally opened on October 1, 1910 – but without a proper terminus. It took another six years to reclaim land and built Kowloon Station on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. The station had a heavy colonnaded façade, above which soared the clock tower, beckoning travellers from across the harbour. Service was slow at first, with only a few trains per day, and it was sometimes suspended due to political upheaval, economic malaise and general lawlessness in China. By the 1920s, only half the passengers on the railway were headed to the mainland, with the rest taking the train to stations in Hong Kong.
That left Hong Kong and its British rulers in a bind. An American company was laying out plans for a railway from Beijing to Guangzhou, via Wuhan, and a Russian-backed Belgian company set to work on a rival Beijing-Wuhan line. France was reportedly looking to shore up its influence in Guangzhou by investing in a railway, too. Britain felt like its sway in southern China was in jeopardy, so in 1899, Hong Kong-based conglomerate Jardine Matheson partnered with the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank to create the British and Chinese Corporation, which won the right to build a railway from Kowloon to Guangzhou, then known as Canton.
Work on the railway stalled for years as the corporation sought funding. In 1904, the Colonial Office in London suggested that the Hong Kong government pay for the section of the railway that would run through its territory, and the following year, a bill to fund the project was pushed through Hong Kong’s legislature at extraordinary speed. Mellor describes the funding scheme as “complicated” and remarks that, by receiving all three readings in one day, the bill to approve it made “constitutional history.”
In 1908, then-governor Frederick Lugard justified the urgency by describing the railway as “a question of preserving the predominance of Hong Kong.” If a rival railway connected Guangzhou to another deep water port, it would be an economic catastrophe for Hong Kong, whose entire reason for being was as an intermediary between the river ports of the Pearl River and the rest of the world.
The railway finally opened on October 1, 1910 – but without a proper terminus. It took another six years to reclaim land and built Kowloon Station on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. The station had a heavy colonnaded façade, above which soared the clock tower, beckoning travellers from across the harbour. Service was slow at first, with only a few trains per day, and it was sometimes suspended due to political upheaval, economic malaise and general lawlessness in China. By the 1920s, only half the passengers on the railway were headed to the mainland, with the rest taking the train to stations in Hong Kong.
Creator
A H & Co. Hong Kong
Date
1920s
Type
Postcard
Files
Collection
Citation
A H & Co. Hong Kong, “Cowloon Canton Railway Hong Kong Station Kowloon,” Local landscape shown in photos and postcards, accessed May 7, 2024, https://imagesofhongkong.omeka.net/items/show/62.