China seeks cure for Spring Festival rail travel headache

As more than 70 percent of the one million students residing there were expected to go home by train, local railway authorities have set up ticket agents on campus, opened more ticket booths for students at stations and offered special trains for students.

Travelers wait for trains at Beijing West Railway Station,  January 1, 2009. Millions of people started setting home on  long journeys on Friday from Beijing as the city kicked off  its Spring Festival travel season early. [Asianewsphoto]

But many still found it difficult to get tickets, especially to Urumqi, Qingdao, Jinan, Harbin, Zhanjiang and Nanning. At the Wuchang Railway Station alone, more than 60,000 tickets were sold on Friday.

In Shanghai, police and security officers were put 24-hour on guard to maintain order and prevent accidents. They gave each passenger a number and assigned them to different waiting lines.