Hundreds Queue For High-speed Rail Tickets

Hundreds of people queued at the West Kowloon station, after high-speed rail tickets started going on sale on Thursday.

Authorities had earlier announced that services between Hong Kong and Guangzhou will resume on January 15, with 10,000 tickets on sale per day – 5,000 in each direction.

People could either reserve their tickets on the mainland's 12306 ticketing website, or purchase them directly at the West Kowloon terminus.

A woman, surnamed Lam, told RTHK that she had been in the queue since early Thursday morning. She said while she had earlier made a reservation to cross the border through the Shenzhen Bay checkpoint, she still prefers to taking the high-speed train.

"It's more comfortable as I'm bringing my kids with me," she said.

A man surnamed Cheuk said he came to join the queue at the station because he couldn't secure a ticket online.

"It's not working. I reloaded the website for a long time, but I still couldn't buy a ticket," he said.

Another woman surnamed Dong, meanwhile, said she’s worried that she might not be able to secure a seat when she returns to Hong Kong later this month, and hopes more tickets could be made available.

Most mainland-bound tickets for the first week of the reopening have already been snapped up.