Tickets for sleeper car trains to and from Zhengzhou railway station between March 25 and June 30 will get differentiated discounts of up to 50% based on distance, Chinanews.com reported on March 22.

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The discount is being launched to "meet passengers' demand and better facilitate their travel," according to the announcement by Zhengzhou Railway Bureau.

But the discount will be subject to blackout dates during the four-day Labor Day holiday, April 30 to May 3.

About 40 trains heading to Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and other cities will embrace this preferential policy. The discount is estimated to be 20 to 50 percent lower, saving travelers dozens of yuan. In some cases, the discounted sleeper tickets may be cheaper than seats on express trains for the same destination.

An official in charge of this program said tickets for lower soft berths will be reduced from 120 yuan ($18.31) to 78 yuan ($11.90), from Anyang city to Zhengzhou, which are both cities in Central China's Henan province less than 200 kilometers apart.

He also said, "This discount is not the first one. There was a discount for train tickets in limited areas at a period as early as 1984. And in 2002, Shanghai Railway Bureau cut ticket prices by 30 to 60 percent for available berths heading to Beijing and other five cities."