The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government announced today that long-haul services of the Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link (XRL) will resume in phases from March 11, with full services resuming on April 1.

The Hong Kong SAR Government said the service resumption follows co-ordination with the relevant Mainland authorities and discussion with the China State Railway Group Co., the China Railway Guangzhou Group Company and the MTR Corporation.

Services between West Kowloon Station and three stations at Chaoshan, Shantou and Zhaoqingdong will resume first.

The public can board long-haul trains on these routes to reach 11 intermediate stations: Chaoyang, Foshanxi, Houmen, Huidong, Huizhounan, Kuitan, Lufeng, Puning, Sanshuinan, Shanwei and Shenzhen Pingshan.

Starting April 1, the long-haul services of the Hong Kong section will fully resume, connecting Hong Kong to long-haul destinations outside Guangdong Province.

Short-haul destination services will also be fine-tuned to better cater for the needs of passengers.

From March 11 onwards, the first train of the day travelling from West Kowloon Station to Guangzhoudong Station will not serve two intermediate stations - Futian and Dongguan, thereby reducing the journey time by more than 10 minutes.

Also from March 11, the departure time of the first train from Guangzhounan Station to West Kowloon Station will be advanced to 7.05am, advancing the arrival time to 8.14am.

The XRL has been running smoothly since its short-haul services resumed on January 15. As at the end of February, the average daily patronage was over 23,000 passenger trips, with the highest single-day patronage at nearly 40,000 passenger trips.