Hong Kong railway builds station off-site to avoid night-time closures
MTR is building the new Hung Shui Kiu Station on the Tuen Ma Line using modular construction, assembling 10,000-tonne station halves 30 metres away before skidding them into place. The method avoids disruptive in-situ work during the limited 'Golden Two Hours' night window.
Hong Kong's railway operator is using an innovative off-site construction method to build the new Hung Shui Kiu Station on the Tuen Ma Line, avoiding the disruption normally caused by building directly on an operating railway, a veteran engineer has revealed.
Writing in his column, Edmund Leung Kwong-ho said the station's two halves, each predominantly of high tensile steel, measure 210 metres long and 15 metres wide and weigh 10,000 tonnes. They are being assembled about 30 metres away from their final position, allowing work to take place during normal working hours rather than in the restricted night-time window.
Conventional construction on a live railway line would require work to be done only during the so-called "Golden Two Hours", approximately between 2am and 4am, for safety reasons. Traditional methods also involve messy wet trades such as concrete pouring and the erection of reinforcement steel, which can pose safety risks and inconvenience to nearby facilities.
Leung said the modular design allows the station structure to be fabricated off-site and transported to the location, where the halves are assembled before being skidded into place. He described the process as requiring "comprehensive planning and flawless execution to ensure exceptional precision far beyond traditional civil and building work practices".
The engineer noted that skidding construction methods have been widely adopted in infrastructure projects around the world, and Hong Kong professionals have quickly learned from them. He cited a previous example of the Fanling Highway viaduct, which was built on an empty adjacent site and rotated about 90 degrees into position on a temporary turntable, avoiding prolonged construction in a congested area that could have interrupted railway services and water supplies.
Leung said Hong Kong had been at the forefront of technology decades ago but had slowly trailed behind its neighbours. He expressed satisfaction that the city is now adopting new construction methods to retain competitiveness and effectiveness.