Tymon Mellor: There are three things we can rely upon; prices will rise, politicians will disappoint and there will always be a train on East Rail. The latter was not always the case though, as up until 1974, there were only 17 passenger trains a day, but this was all about to change with the modernisation of the line. During […]
» Read more
The Hong Kong Flying Club was formed in the late 1920s when the Governor, Sir Cecil Clementi, presided over the inaugural meeting on 20 December 1929. The Hong Kong Aviation Club was established in 1982 upon the amalgamation of the Hong Kong Flying Club, the Aero Club of Hong Kong and the Far East Flying & Technical School. This article about […]
» Read more
“Ingham Sutcliffe who had only recently set up in business as a consulting engineer in Siam, was previously engaged as assistant chief mechanical engineer and superintendent of workshops on the Royal State Railways of Siam. He had held this appointment since 1919 and resigned from government service in 1930. He was born at Bradford in 1880, and after serving as […]
» Read more
IDJ has sent an article, The Development of Rail Transport in the Logging Industry, which is about Borneo. This briefly mentions a Taikoo dockyard steam locomotive being used by the British Borneo Timber Company around the 1920s. “It is also believed that the BBTC later added a second steam locomotive of unidentified manufacture Taikoo No. 1, purchased second hand from Hong […]
» Read more
Tymon Mellor: On the 20th October, 1905 the Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan wrote to the Colonial Office in London confirming that the route to be adopted for the Kowloon Canton Railway (British Section) would follow the eastern alignment via Shatin, rather than the western alignment via Tuen Mun, and which would have eight stations within the Territory. Now all they […]
» Read more
York Lo: Y.C. Liang and HK Macao Hydrofoil Left: a scene from the 1974 James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun in front of the HK Macau Hydrofoil ticketing booth; Right: a HKMH ticket from 1983 In the history of transportation between Hong Kong and Macau, the legendary Yuen-Cheong Liang CBE (梁潤昌, but better known as Liang Cheong […]
» Read more
“Kenneth Alfred Wolfe Barry (c1879-1936) Second son of John Wolfe Barry Partner in business with his father, along with A.G. Lyster, Past President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and G. E. W Crutwell, M. Inst. C.E. J. S. 1936 Obituary: Kenneth Alfred Wolfe Barry , O.B.E., was the senior partner in the firm of Sir John Wolfe Barry and Partners. […]
» Read more
Tymon Mellor: At the end of the nineteenth century, the great world powers were all trying to expand their spheres of influence within China. The approach of the British was to use Hong Kong as a marine trading hub, enhanced with the provision of a railway network thus extending the Colony’s commercial reach into the Chinese hinterland and connecting with […]
» Read moreHF: I have updated the images shown so that, hopefully, details can be seen more clearly. Click on the link for the improved version, the miniature below gives a very rough idea of what you will see, Elizabeth Ride has sent a number of plans, maps and sketches compiled by agents of the British Army Aid Group. These all show […]
» Read more
Rob Weir: The following information comes from War Office (WO) and Foreign Office (FO) documents held at The National Archives at Kew, London, UK. These notes were basically made “in passing” as a diversion to my main interests and so are fairly rough. I’ve put them in ascending date order from the first reference I found until the last. This doesn’t mean there […]
» Read more