Chinese railway authorities have launched additional trains to tackle the rush of college students and migrant workers heading back to school and work at the end of the Spring Festival break.
Train stations in Chengdu, Nanjing, Wuhan and Guangzhou all reported peak traffic over Sunday or Monday.
The Chengdu Railway Bureau will launch 300 additional trains for the peak traffic season, which is expected to ease Feb. 16.
In Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, migrant worker Shen Jiwang was longing to get a ticket to Shenzhen, south China's manufacturing hub, at the train station Monday morning.
"They said there won't be any tickets to Shenzhen until Feb. 20," Shen said. He will have to return to his hometown in rural Qianwei County, Sichuan, until he can buy a ticket.
On Monday, Wuhan Railway Bureau launched 109 additional trains, with the bureau handling up to 780,000 passengers per day, up 5 percent year on year.
Wuhan, capital of central province of Hubei, is home to more than 80 universities. It will receive about 1 million students returning to school as the new semester begins.
In Yangxin County, Hubei, a Xinhua reporter saw trains heading for the booming Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta stuffed with migrant workers. During the past couple of days, the county train station has handled about 10,000 passengers per day.
At a Guangzhou train station, part of the Pearl River Delta, a train arrived at 10:30 a.m. overloaded with migrant workers, according to conductor Liu Zhijin.