Source: CCTV.com
02-01-2007 16:47
Special Report: 2007 Spring Festival |
The nightmare of getting a train ticket for Spring Festival has begun. The big holiday is still eighteen days away. But people who need to travel home on New Year's Eve are already desperate.
An early start does not guarantee a seat. Queues form overnight, but there's nothing worse in the morning than being told tickets are already sold out. These scenes are common, and can happen to the same person more than once.
A passenger said "I've come here twice. Tickets are sold twenty days in advance, it's the first day tickets for February 17th are on sale. But I still missed it."
To make sure they can get home by New Year's Eve, many people have to turn to scalpers, sometimes spending an extra one hundred yuan. This is adding to the disorder in demand and supply.
China's railway has a daily passenger capacity of 2.5 million, but the demand is nearly doubled during the Spring Festival. Getting a ticket is difficult, and it's even harder to travel around. But industry insiders say there are things can be done to make travelling easier for everyone.
Ministry of Railways spokesman Wang Yongping said "China's railway service has a severe supply shortage. To really solve this problem, we must, in broader scale, expand the railway network."
The plans are in place to do that. Three years ago, the State Council drew up a blueprint for railway development. By 2020, the length of China's railway routes will reach 100 thousand kilometers. Express trains with an average speed of two hundred kilometers an hour will be running between major cities. And high speed trains running at three hundred fifty kilometers an hour will have an annual passenger capacity of 160 million.
Editor:Du Xiaodan
