Saturday witnessed the first travel peak of student passengers of 259,000, up 12.3 percent year-on-year, the Ministry of Railways said.

As the spring semester of most colleges comes after Feb. 12, the fifteenth day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, which marks the end of the New Year holidays, students began to return to school.

Railways had carried 1.199 million students from Jan. 29, the New Year's Day, to Feb. 11, while 3.058 million students tickets have been sold. The ministry said about seven million students will take railways after the Spring Festival.

On Feb. 11 railways transported 3.94 million passengers, 266,000 more than the same term of last year. Among the total, 1.81 million took direct long-distance trains, 197,000 more than the same term of last year. The ministry launched 698 temporary trains to facilitate passengers.

The ministry said as the number of student passengers kept growing and there are still migrant workers who will come back to larger cities after family reunion, the railways will remain busy in the coming week.

(Xinhua News Agency February 13, 2006)