The MTR is in service 19 hours a day carrying a total of 5.1 million passengers. It is one of the busiest railway systems in the world. For most of the people in Hong Kong it is a part of their lives and they take its speed and efficiency for granted. But behind the scene each train and each section of the track is maintained by a team dedicated to paying close and meticulous attention to every detail.
The MTR network is 218 kilometre long. Its operation depends on thousands of components working together simultaneously. So there is a very heavy maintenance and repair workload. The department in charge works 24 hours a day to carry out daily as well as a regular repair work. Trains are checked and maintained during the day at the depot. But to avoid any disruption in its service, maintenance work on overhead cables and railway tracks have to be conducted after the train service stops and before it resumes. Every night hundreds of maintenance workers are in the tunnels doing preventive repair work such as rail renewal. They have a very small window to remove the old rail, install the new rail, and to carry out the necessary welding and grinding work before train service resumes. It is a race against time.
