Prodded by Hu, railways rush to do more

By Zuo Likun (chinadaily.com.cn)

China's railway authorities, prodded by President Hu Jintao and millions of travelers who aspire to go home for the impending 7-day Spring Festival holidays, pledged Thursday they would do more.

People crowd a passage to a railway platform at Guangzhou railway station in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong province January 10, 2009. A total of 188 million people will be travelling by train in the country for family reunion during this year's Spring Festival travel peak, which will last 40 days until mid-February and strain the railway system. [Xinhua]

As an expected 200 million people could be on the move for the most celebrated Chinese festival in a year, the difficulty facing the railway officials is enormous. Increasing complaints from the travelers about the trouble to get a home ticket, especially the rumored corrupted money trade between ticket sellers and scalpers, caught the ears of the top leadership.

The website of the Ministry of Railways highlighted Thursday a message written by President Hu. The note said: "This year's Spring Festival is facing a tougher supply-demand imbalance, and the ministry has to brainstorm for measures to improve passenger convenience, and make all the measures public."

The president also ordered the ministry to ensure a smooth and safe transportation during the peak season of family reunion.

Responding to the instructions, top ministry officials convened a mid-night meeting to mete out a raft of measures to ease transportation congestion, provide more tickets to the needy, while end the loopholes which feed on a booming scalper business.

Vice Minister of Railways Wang Zhiguo told reporters on Thursday in Beijing that the ministry will suspend cargo services to allow more passenger trains in the busiest southern and eastern regions. Short-distance passenger trains would be suspended for more long-distance trains. Hard sleepers would be changed to seats.

The ministry will also transfer passenger trains serving northeast and northwest areas to south and east China and improve schedules of temporary trains, especially those for students and migrant workers.

Tickets will be sold only in the railway ticket sales network, except for group tickets for students and migrant workers. Hotels, restaurants and travel agencies are ordered to halt ticket booking services. In addition, major stations will adopt 24-hour ticket services.

As a new rule decreed by the ministry on Thursday, sales staff will be prohibited from buying tickets for others, from carrying cash and mobile phones during work hours, from keeping personal belongings on the sales desk.

Wang also apologized to passengers who had reacted angrily to a video posted online, which showed a sales lady at Beijing Railway Station's ticket office printing out 130 tickets of trains running to cities in the northeast, while eager passengers waited for hours in long lines in frigid cold, but to no avail.

Passengers had accused the station of scalping tickets.

"On behalf of the ministry, I have to apologize to passengers for their unpleasant feelings and misunderstandings the incident has caused," Wang said. "The action was immediately investigated and turned out it was part of advance preparations to save time for passengers. There was no rumored collusion between railway staff and ticket scalpers."

The 3-minute video clip was posted on the internet on Monday, sparking an uproar among Chinese internet surfers，stoking the long-harbored discontent over scalpers as many failed to get tickets home.

Wang reiterated his ministry's determination to deal harshly with any malpractice in ticket sales. More than 30,000 police officers have been mobilized in a nationwide campaign against scalpers, detaining over 2000 scalpers, and confiscating nearly 80,000 tickets which was resold to travelers later.

Huge traffic volume during the Spring Festival has long plagued China's railway system, as the demand far exceeded the supply.

In the world's largest annual human migration, 188 million passengers are expected to take rail for home during this year's Spring Festival holiday.

The tension got more public attention when a man in his 60s died suddenly after waiting for hours in long lines to buy train tickets last Wednesday in a East China city.

The scarcity of homebound tickets during the Spring Festival travel rush would be significantly eased by 2012 when freight trains travel on different rails from passenger trains, and when over 800 more railway stations will be built or restored, Wang told reporters.