Yau Ma Tei, formerly named Waterloo after Waterloo Road, is an

MTR The Mass Transit Railway system, known locally by the initialism MTR, is a rapid transit system in Hong Kong and the territory's principal mode of Rail transport in Hong Kong, railway transportation. Operated by the MTR Corporation (MTRCL), ...

station located in

Yau Ma Tei Yau Ma Tei is an area in the Yau Tsim Mong District in the south of the Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong. Name ''Yau Ma Tei'' is a phonetic transliteration of the name (originally written as ) in Cantonese. It can also be spelt as Yaumatei, Y ...

Kowloon Kowloon () is one of the areas of Hong Kong, three areas of Hong Kong, along with Hong Kong Island and the New Territories. It is an urban area comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. It has a population of 2,019,533 and a populat ...

. It lays straightly like a long box under thoroughfare

Nathan Road Nathan Road () is the main thoroughfare in Kowloon, Hong Kong, aligned south–north from Tsim Sha Tsui to Sham Shui Po. It is lined with shops and restaurants and throngs with visitors, and was known in the post–World War II years as the Gol ...

, ending north under Pitt Street and south near Man Ming Lane. It is served by the and the . The station opened on 22 December 1979 and was renamed as Yau Ma Tei on 31 May 1985 along with Argyle (

Mong Kok Mong Kok (Chinese language, Chinese: 旺角), also spelled Mongkok, often abbreviated as MK, is an area in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The Prince Edward, Hong Kong, Prince Edward subarea occupies the northern part of Mong Kok. As one of the major sho ...

) and Chater ( Central). Yau Ma Tei is an interchange station, even though the platforms are not designed for

cross-platform interchange A cross-platform interchange is a type of Interchange station, interchange between different lines at a metro (or other railway) station. The term originates with the London Underground; such layouts exist in other networks but are not commonly ...

. After the Kwun Tong line has been extended to Whampoa, it is used by northbound passengers on one line to change to southbound trains on the other line. This station is used by many

student A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution, or more generally, a person who takes a special interest in a subject. In the United Kingdom and most The Commonwealth, commonwealth countries, a "student" attends ...

s during commuting hours, since it is in the vicinity of many large schools. The station's livery colour is a light grey. Red, white, and blue stripes, which prominently adorned the station walls until they were removed as part of renovation works in 2005 which also saw the original

Helvetica Helvetica, also known by its original name Neue Haas Grotesk, is a widely-used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the f ...

typeface, used in station name signs, replaced by

Myriad In the context of numeric naming systems for powers of ten, myriad is the quantity ten thousand ( 10,000). Idiomatically, in English, ''myriad'' is an adjective used to mean that a group of things has indefinitely large quantity. ''Myriad ...

History

In 1967, the station was proposed as Waterloo, a double station with Tsuen Wan Line on the east side of Nathan Road, and Kwun Tong Line the west, linking with pedestrian tunnels, in Hong Kong Mass Transport Study. The design was later scaled down when the projected population was recalculated based on new

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

data. Contract 101 includes the construction of this station, along with Argyle (now Mong Kok) and Prince Edward stations. It was awarded to a joint venture between Gammon, Kier International, and Lilley Construction. The station, along with other sections under Nathan Road, was built with

cut-and-cover A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two Portal (architecture), portals common at each end, though ther ...

. This inevitably brought much trouble on Nathan Road, the

thoroughfare A thoroughfare is a primary passage or way of transport, whether by road on dry land or, by extension, via watercraft or aircraft. Originally, the word referred to a main road or open street which was frequented thoroughly. Different terms *Roa ...

in Kowloon Peninsular. The construction induced serious

traffic congestion Traffic congestion is a condition in transport that is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. Traffic congestion on urban road networks has increased substantially since the 1950s, resulting in m ...

in Kowloon, produced quite amount of dust to the environment, and affected the business on both side of the road. On 16 December 1979, The

Kwun Tong line The Kwun Tong line () is a rapid transit line of the MTR network in Hong Kong. Starting at Whampoa station, Whampoa in Hung Hom and ending at Tiu Keng Leng station, Tiu Keng Leng in Tseung Kwan O, Sai Kung Town, Sai Kung, the route has 1 ...

was extended from Shek Kip Mei to Tsim Sha Tsui station. However, Yau Ma Tei station was opened on 22nd of that month as an infill station. When the station was first opened, only upper level platform was in use. Three weeks before Tsuen Wan line opened, on 26 April 1982, MTR Corporation split the Modified Initial System into Kwun Tong line and Tsuen Wan line, in order to let passengers to get used to transfer at Mong Kok station. On the same day, the lower level platform was put into use. The Kwun Tong line was extended to Whampoa station on 23 October 2016.

Station layout

From the scissor crossing after Whampoa terminus to north of Yau Ma Tei, the Kwun Tong line drives on the right side of the tunnel, as opposed to almost everywhere else in the MTR, where the driving direction is usually on the left (except for the ). The difference in driving directionality is due to the track layout between Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok stations. The Kwun Tong line extension towards Whampoa station via

Ho Man Tin Ho Man Tin is a mostly residential area in Kowloon, Hong Kong, part of the Kowloon City District. History Section of lists of villages in the book ' (literally ''The History of Bao'an County, Xin'an County'') published in twenty fourth year ...

opened on 23 October 2016. In preparation, the numbers of the Kwun Tong line platforms were swapped starting on 11 June 2016, and platform 4 became alighting-only (and platform 3 boarding-only) from 21 August 2016. After the opening of the Kwun Tong line extension, Yau Ma Tei became an interchange station between the Kwun Tong line and the Tsuen Wan line, with each line using platforms on a different level.

Livery

The station's livery is light grey and red in concourse and exits

Entrances/exits

* A1: Pitt Street * A2: Pitt Street, YMCA Kowloon Centre,

Kwong Wah Hospital Kwong Wah Hospital is a 1,141-bed Charitable hospital in Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong. Located on 25 Waterloo Road, Kwong Wah Hospital is the main district general hospital was founded by the Tung Wah Group in 1911, and managed by the Hospital A ...

* B1:

* B2: Portland Street, 8 Waterloo Road * C: Man Ming Lane (for Temple Street) * D: Waterloo Road, Metropark Hotel Kowloon

Gallery

Yau Ma Tei Station Tsuen Wan Line platforms 2022 05 part2.jpg, Tsuen Wan line platforms (May 2022) Yau Ma Tei Station 2020 07 part9.jpg, Station concourse with the customer service centre booth sitting between the paid and unpaid areas (July 2020)

References

{{Tsuen Wan Line navbox Kwun Tong line MTR stations in Kowloon Railway stations in Hong Kong opened in 1979 Tsuen Wan line Yau Ma Tei