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Testing time for students heading home

By Wang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-19 07:54

Beijing railway station staff are braced for a sudden surge in passenger numbers as universities in the capital start their winter holidays.[China Daily]

Trains heading out of the capital have been packed with passengers since Friday, when most university students finished their final examinations and began their winter holidays, said a press officer from Beijing Railway Administration.

The spokesperson, surnamed Jia, said volume was up but the company had not yet calculated the exact numbers of passengers riding the rails this week.

A ticket office worker at Beijing Railway Station told METRO yesterday she had sold around 400 tickets each day recently and around half went to those with a student ID.

"Because the tide of students going home has just started, there are still enough tickets available. Sleeper tickets are very difficult to get and many people are already turning to hard seat tickets, even though they have journeys ahead of them lasting many hours," she said.

Estimates put the number of students set to leave the capital by train at around 500,000.

The most popular destinations include Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Fuzhou and Chengdu, said Jia.

Jiang Yu, a junior student from Peking University Health and Science Center majoring in clinical medicine, finished his final exam on Sunday and was leaving for his hometown Wuwei, Gansu province, yesterday at Beijing Railway station.

He said the train ride would take between 26 and 28 hours. He had hoped to get a sleeper ticket but they were sold out.

"I was very worried, but thanks to the students' block-booking system, Peking University booked a roundtrip hard-seat ticket for me," he said.

"Although I will have to spend a miserable day on a train's hard seat, I am still very excited to think I will be home very soon."

The prospect for students who wait too long to buy a ticket is not rosy.

Shi Chao, a third-year student from the University of International Business and Economics, must stay in Beijing until Feb 8 to sit a Test of English as a Foreign Language. "I think I will have to line up at Beijing Railway Station at 4 am to get a ticket, otherwise it will be impossible to get home for Spring Festival," he said.