Chinese passengers try to board a train at a railway station in Shanghai, January 21, 2006. A record 2 billion trips are expected during the 40-day peak travel season, from Jan. 14 to Feb. 22, challenging China's road, rail, flight, ship transportation.

China's railway transportation capacity before the Lunar New Year hit a new record on Saturday, even though it was the first day of increased rail travel prices.

About 3.74 million passengers boarded trains nationwide, a growth of 510,000 passengers over the same period last year, the Ministry of Railways said. 549 temporary trains were arranged to carry the passengers, 108 more than last year.

In Beijing West Railway Station, 167,000 people boarded trains, increasing by nearly 39 per cent from last year. In Shanghai Railway Station, passengers reached 169,000, while in Guangzhou there were 198,000 train travelers, according to statistics from the Ministry.

By 4 pm on Saturday, railway lines disturbed by heavy snowfall on Thursday in Central China were starting to return to normal.

"But the railway transportation network still needs one or two days to recover," Yao Hongren from Beijing West Railway Station told the Beijing News.

Since passengers numbers are expected to climb in the coming days, Yao said that in his station, the red emergency scheme will be continued until January 28, the last day of the year on the lunar calendar, which indicates that passengers will be allowed into the waiting hall only six hours before the departure time.

Hundreds of police remained in the station to maintain orderly passenger flow, but there are still some passengers stranded in the station.

Seventeen passenger trains heading for Shanghai along the Longhai Railway, which runs from Gansu Province to Shanghai, were seriously delayed due to the heavy snowfall in Central China, leaving at least 20,000 passengers still stranded in the Shanghai Railway Station by yesterday afternoon.

The railway administration has partly opened its underground parking garage and ticket office to receive the huge number of waiting passengers.

According to an official named Fan Qing with the office of Shanghai Railway Station, only four of the 17 delayed trains heading for Shanghai have settled their departure time.

More windows have been opened to serve passengers who want to return their tickets for the trains, which will run along the Longhai Railway.

It will still take some time to relieve the pressure of stranded passengers before the extreme peak transportation period, which is estimated to come on January 26, Fan said.

(China Daily January 23, 2006)