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Spring Festival rush for home puts China to harmony test

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-01-14 23:35

BEIJING - Special armed police joined normal patrol officers and police dogs sniffed around luggage offices and platforms for prohibited goods.

People wait in the west square of Beijing West Railway Station to buy train tickets home on January 11, 2009, the first day of China's Spring Festival travel rush. [cnsphoto]

At first sight, the security at Beijing Railway station, China's busiest transport center before the Lunar New Year which falls on January 26, was roughly the same as last year.

But for many railway staff, this year's 40-day Spring Festival passenger rush is a "real test" of their capability to promote harmony as global financial crisis and the weakening domestic economy have aggravated the winter blues.

The Railway Minister predicted the first passenger peak to come on January 20 to 24. Public grumbles over the hardship of obtaining a ticket, however, have reached a clamor on the Internet following the sudden death of a man in his 60s last Wednesday in a ticket office of the Chengzhan Railway Station, Huangzhou.

While police are investigating the man's identity and cause of death, people in Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai compiled on-line ticket purchase guidebooks which invited public praise, but once again put railway authorities in the hot seat.

There were compliments too. The two new temporary toilets set up in the Hangzhou Railway Station, for instance, were described as "the warmth in the severe cold".

Chai Zeliang, deputy chief of the Beijing Bureau of the Railroad Police, says that whatever criticisms passengers might have, one principle for all railway staff was "to exercise restraint".

"The central government proposed the building of a harmonious society. The railways are just one element, but without harmony in the railways and the Spring Festival passenger rush, a harmonious society is out of the question," he says.

Still, by Chai's own admission, complaints, grumbles, even bickering happen almost every day. "The truth is that both passengers and railway staff were stressed as China's railway capacity falls far behind demand."

Almost 188 million people are expected to travel by train in the holiday season, up 8 percent or 13.73 million from last year. The daily rail traffic will grow by 340,000 people to a record average high of 4.7 million.

One hard fact for travelers banking on trains is the per capita railway mileage of only 6 cm, shorter than a cigarette. What's worse, many rail tracks must serve dual purposes as passenger and freight transport.

"When traffic is lighter, it's easy for people to travel light-hearted. At rush periods, many passengers have already grappled with road traffic jams before facing boisterous crowds and long hours waiting in railway stations. They have reason to be less tolerant," says Chai. He has been working with the Beijing bureau for 20 years.

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