Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation has unveiled its first wheelset maintenance centre, set to open in the coming months, cutting the time for the labour-intensive process from more than three days to 10 hours.

The rail giant said on Thursday that the new HK$300 million (US$38.3 million) Integrated Wheelset Maintenance Centre, located at the Ho Man Tin siding, would be capable of processing 1,500 wheelsets annually through automation.

The capacity is designed to meet growing service demands on the Tuen Ma and East Rail lines.

Lee Kim-hung, the MTR Corp’s deputy director of operations engineering maintenance, said the facility represented a comprehensive overhaul of traditional maintenance workflows through the use of cutting-edge technology, while enhancing safety.

“Even when our wheels show just a few millimetres of wear and tear, we perform grinding to restore their circular shape. Based on the condition and service life of each wheelset, we also carry out full replacements every few years,” he said.

He explained that wheelset repair and replacement were some of the most repetitive and labour-intensive tasks in railway maintenance, noting that a single train carriage contains four 1.5-tonne wheelsets, each comprising two wheels and an axle.