A record number of passengers are expected to return home by train during this year's Spring Festival travel peak. But with railway network capacity falling seriously short of demand, the vast majority of passengers who succeeded in buying tickets will still have to cope with a tortuous journey home.

A record number of passengers are expected to return home by train during this year's Spring Festival travel peak.

This is the busiest railway station in southern China. Each year ahead of the Spring Festival, tens of millions of passengers, most of them rural migrants bases in Guangdong's Pearl River Delta area, take trains home from Guangzhou Railway Station.

It's a real battleground here. People try every possible way just to get on the train. Though many have to crowd in the jammed and stuffy carriages for more than 10 hours, it's all considered worthwhile for just one purpose--getting home.