Beacon Hill Tunnel is a

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

on the original

Kowloon–Canton Railway The Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR; ) was a railway network in Hong Kong.Legislative Council information paper CB(1)357/07-08(0 THB(T) CR 8/986/00, CB(1)1749/07-08(0/ref> It was owned and operated by the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCR ...

, linking

Kowloon Tong Kowloon Tong () is an area of Hong Kong located in Kowloon. The majority of the area is in the Kowloon City District. Its exaclocationis south of the Lion Rock, north of Boundary Street, east of the East Rail line and west of Grampian Road. It ...

to its immediate south and

Sha Tin Sha Tin, also spelt Shatin, is a neighbourhood along Shing Mun River in the eastern New Territories, Hong Kong. Administratively, it is part of the Sha Tin District. Sha Tin is one of the neighbourhoods of the Sha Tin New Town project. The ...

to its north. The nearest stations to the south and north of the tunnel are

and

Tai Wai Tai Wai () is an area in the New Territories, Hong Kong, located between Sha Tin and the Lion Rock, within the Sha Tin District. With three rapid transit stations, one of which an interchange station serving two lines, five bus termini and ...

respectively. Today, the tunnel carries the

MTR The Mass Transit Railway (MTR) is a major public transport network serving :Hong Kong. Operated by the MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL), it consists of heavy rail, light rail, and feeder bus service centred on a 10-line rapid transit network ...

East Rail line The East Rail line () is one of ten lines of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system in Hong Kong. It used to be one of the three lines of the Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR) network. It was known as the KCR British Section () from 1910 to 199 ...

metro service and through trains to Mainland China. There are actually two tunnels of this name. The first () opened in 1910 and operated until its replacement () came into operation following its 1981 completion.

History

First tunnel

A team of surveyors was commissioned to plan the route for the KCR British Section in 1905. Two routes were proposed: #Construction of a tunnel 1.5 mile (2.4 km) long through

Beacon Hill Beacon Hill may refer to: Places Canada * Beacon Hill, Ottawa, Ontario, a neighbourhood * Beacon Hill Park, a park in Victoria, British Columbia * Beacon Hill, Saskatchewan * Beacon Hill, Montreal, a neighbourhood in Beaconsfield, Quebec United ...

, then following the west coast of

Tolo Harbour Tolo Harbour, or Tai Po Hoi (, historically ) is a sheltered harbour in northeast New Territories of Hong Kong. Geography Tide Cove aka. Sha Tin Hoi is to the south of the harbour, and Plover Cove, Three Fathoms Cove and Tolo Channel are to ...

#Routing through western

New Territories The New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of Hong Kong. Historically, it ...

and

Castle Peak Bay Castle Peak Bay is a bay outside Tuen Mun. Tuen Mun River empties into the bay. In the past, many Tanka fishermen harboured at the bay. In 1513, explorer Jorge Álvares arrived in the Pearl River Delta and started a Portuguese settlement, ...

Although option two was less of an engineering challenge, the overall route was longer, and passed through less

economically Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyze ...

active areas; therefore option one was selected. Works on the railway to the border started early 1906. Construction of the tunnel, referred to as Tunnel No.2 in the plan (since it was the second tunnel out from the Kowloon terminus), was the greatest

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

project in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

of its time. Construction of the tunnel presented great engineering challenges during construction of the line, and local workers were very reluctant to work underground due to feng shui-related objections. In the end, Italian workers were employed. The tunnel cost £298,500 to build and opened with the rest of the line on 1 October 1910, together with four smaller tunnels along the line. It accommodated a single standard track with a

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in E ...

of . Throughout its operating life, the tunnel was noted for its fume problems, due to its relatively steep

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the gr ...

of 1%. The tunnel was closed upon completion of the new one, and is now partially occupied by several

town gas Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous ...

pipelines, operated by

The Hong Kong and China Gas Company The Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited, doing business as Towngas, is the sole provider of towngas in Hong Kong. Founded in 1862, it is one of the oldest listed companies in the territory. History In February 1862, the concession to s ...

. The potential for damage to the pipes was a factor in determining the intensity of blasting during construction of the

Sha Tin to Central Link The Sha Tin to Central Link (abbreviated SCL; ) is an extension of the MTR rapid transit network. It is divided into two sections. The first section, named "Tuen Ma line (Phase 1)”, runs from Tai Wai station in the New Territories to Hun ...

, thereby protecting the old tunnel as a whole.

Second tunnel

As part of the modernisation of the KCR, under reformist Governor

Murray MacLehose Crawford Murray MacLehose, Baron MacLehose of Beoch, (; 16 October 1917 – 27 May 2000), was a British politician, diplomat and the 25th Governor of Hong Kong, from 1971 to 1982. He was the longest-serving governor of the colony, with fou ...

, a double-tracked,

electrified Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic history ...

tunnel was built 30 to 40 metres west of the original one.A Century of Railway Development – The Hong Kong Story
, Charles C P Lung, Institution of Railway Signal Engineers Work started in 1978. The main contractor was

Aoki Corporation Aoki Corporation was a Japanese construction company founded in 1947. It built many projects in Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and also invested in non-construction businesses, like hotels. It previously owned the Westin Hotels chain. The company, ...

and the tunnel was built at a cost of about HK$78 million. It was broken through on 23 April 1980. The tunnel was completed by 1981, enabling the KCRC to introduce a metro-standard service to serve the rapidly growing

new towns A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

north of the mountain range.

Dimensions

First tunnel

* single track * 2.2 km long * horseshoe-shaped, 5.2 metres wide by 5.8 metres high above rail level. * up to 427 metres below ground * tunnel lining upgraded in 1982 and 2008

Second tunnel

* double track * 2.3 km long * horseshoe-shaped, 11 metres wide by 9 metres high

References

Bibliography

*{{cite book, last=Phillips, first=Robert J., title=Kowloon-Canton railway (British section): A History, publisher=

Urban Council The Urban Council (UrbCo) was a municipal council in Hong Kong responsible for municipal services on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon (including New Kowloon). These services were provided by the council's executive arm, the Urban Servic ...

, date=1990 1910 establishments in Hong Kong 1981 establishments in Hong Kong Railway tunnels in Hong Kong Tunnels completed in 1910 Tunnels completed in 1981