Nam Cheong Station was called Yen Chow Street Station in its planning stage. The station was subsequently renamed "Nam Cheong" after Nam Cheong Estate, a nearby public housing estate, which in turn is named after Nam Cheong Street. Nam Cheong Street was named after Mr. Chan Nam Cheong, a local philanthropist. As "Nam Cheong" is also the Cantonese-based transliteration for Nanchang, some sources mistakenly state that the station was named after the mainland Chinese city. Works for Nam Cheong Station started on 5 October 2000; the station was built by a joint venture formed by Balfour Beatty and Zen Pacific. The station was opened for public use on 16 December 2003, coinciding with the pre-opening charity trial run day of the KCR West Rail, and the Tung Chung Line part of the station started operation. On 20 December, the KCRWest Rail officially commenced operation, and Nam Cheong became the southern terminus of the rail line. Upon its completion, the station was a shared-use integrated station between MTR and KCR, and the first integrated one between the two systems. The station concourse was divided into two parts. Special transfer turnstiles were located between the two parts, enabling passengers paying with Octopus card to interchange between the two systems by tapping their card just once. The operations of MTR and KCR merged on 2 December 2007, and the management of the station unified under MTRCL. Following the network-wide fare zone merger of the former MTR and KCR networks on 28 September 2008, the transfer turnstiles along with the barriers separating the two fare zones were removed, and cross-platform interchange is now provided between platform 1 and platform 4 ; several passageways were opened between the two platforms. One of the wider passages is aligned with the fifth and sixth carriages of the Hong Kong-bound trains on the Tung Chung Line platform. The Kowloon Southern Link extension of West Rail Line opened on 16 August 2009, and the West Rail Line was extended to Hung Hom on that day. Nam Cheong lost its status as the southern terminus of West Rail Line, and became an intermediate station for both Tung Chung and West Rail lines.
Station layout
All four platforms are located at ground level. The platforms are curved because they were built around the existing tracks. However, the gaps are not very large. Before the merge of fare systems on 28 September 2008, Octopus card users transferring between the West Rail Line and Tung Chung Line had to use the transfer gates separating fare areas the MTR and KCR systems. Once the card was placed on a reader, the first section of journey fare would be deducted and passengers could walk over to the other fare area. Passengers who accidentally walked to the wrong area by mistake had to exit the station through the exit gates within 15 minutes, or an extra fare was charged.
