Lam Tei Quarry connections with post WW2 proposed Ping Shan Airport

IDJ : Quarries supplying construction materials for the proposed Ping Shan Airport are thought to be at the location above, the nearest mapped quarries to the site. They were connected to the airport site by a temporary narrow gauge railway. Site drawings for this project have not been found so far.  The RAF’s Airfield Construction Branch paper mentions the clearing of a hill outcrop at Tai Wai Shan just north of this image in the Ping Shan valley needing the removal of 250,000 tons of rock rock.

As it was solely a Royal Air Force project any surviving maps may be located in their historical files. So much land formation has been done in this area over the years, it is now difficult to visualise where all the hillocks and outcrops would have been in 1945/46.

HF adds: This name of this quarry  was and is Lam Tei. We are up  in the NW New Territories  about  3 Km NE of Tuen Mun MTR station between Lam Tei  and Hung Shi Hang Irrigation Reservoirs.(I think there is the main quarry with a very much smaller one immediately to the west)

The Quarry will be the only active quarry left in Hong Kong after 2015, with rock reserves sufficient for another quarrying contract until 2022.

This article was first posted on 17th January 2014.

For further information about the airport see:

1. Ping Shan – proposed airport for Hong Kong 
2. Ping Shan airfield – further information
3. Ping Shan airport – an extract from Paul Tsui’s unpublished memoir
4. Chek Lap Kok Quarry
5. Lam Tei Quarry connections with post WW2 proposed Ping Shan Airport
6. Lam Tei Quarry – Ping Shan Airport , RAF Technical  Magazine Report, May 1946
7. Ling Hang Quarry (China)  – supplier to Green Island Cement Company
8. Of gods, diamonds and brothels – quarrying questions