First day of Hong Kong's high-speed rail service

Hundreds of passengers flocked into the Kowloon West station at dawn on Sunday to be among the first to experience Hong Kong’s new high-speed trains bound for mainland China. The 26km Hong Kong section, which serves 44 destinations and is linked to China’s 25,000-station network, took eight years to build. It was delayed by three years, its budget overran by a third, and its arrangements for joint customs and border checkpoints – the so-called co-location plan – sparked a political storm.