CHINA: September 12 sees the opening of the Hong Kong Disneyland park at Penny’s Bay, served by a 4 km branch from Sunny Bay on MTR’s Tung Chung Line.
Revenue service on Hong Kong’s first fully-automated metro began on August 1, attracting an average of 10 000 passengers/day in the first week.
The Disneyland Resort Line is equipped with Alcatel’s SelTrac S40 CBTC, using wayside controllers to issue movement authorities. The single-track line, with one 800m passing loop, is normally operated by two of three ATO-equipped four-car EMUs.
The trains are stabled at the Lantau Airport Railway’s Shiu Wan depot, requiring an interface between SelTrac and the LAR’s Alstom signalling so that empty trains can run between passenger services in coded manual or fully-automatic mode.
Another innovation is the equipping of the DRL for ‘concurrent operation’. Back-up train location is provided by an axle-counter ‘underlay’ so a non-equipped maintenance train can inter-work with the EMUs.
