Almost all tickets for trains departing from Guangzhou before the Spring Festival have been sold out. If you're still determined to get away there are a few tickets remaining to some of the less popular destinations, and the date of departure might not be earlier than the eve of the festival.

Nearly 3 million train tickets were sold in Guangzhou by Tuesday afternoon, the city's peak travel supervising office announced.

Passengers can buy train tickets at railway stations; eight designated ticket offices; via the post service; or via a telephone hotline 95105105.

The travel supervising office is suggesting people use the phone service to purchase tickets.

While the phone service sells tickets 10 days before departure, the eight ticket offices sell tickets six days ahead, and passengers can buy tickets only two days ahead at railway stations.

If you cannot get a ticket via the hotline, it means the tickets for that train are sold out, an official explained, and then it is unnecessary to go to ticket offices. He suggested passengers plan their journeys early and choose other transport means when their desired destination is sold out.

The first passenger peak will arrive around January 20, when more than half a million people are expected to ride on trains departing Guangzhou. The second peak is expected to fall January 25-26, with 600,000 passengers leaving the city on trains.

The Guangzhou Railway Group has added an unprecedented 278 temporary express trains for the Spring Festival travel peak, 54 more than last year. It also opened 400 more ticket service windows and hired 200 skilled workers for the occasion.

The company transported 440,000 homebound students in the last two weeks and sold 600,000 group tickets to migrant workers.

Passengers on a L602 train from Foshan, southwestern Guangdong to Yueyang in Hunan Province praised the efforts by railway staff Tuesday.

Yang Qifa, a Hunan migrant, said he was pleased to see orderliness and cleanliness on the trains. "The young attendant was so polite to me. He has collected the garbage and swept the floor six or seven times since I boarded the train," the man was quoted by the Southern Metropolis Daily as saying. The migrant also said it was much easier to get a ticket this year than last.

(Shenzhen Daily January 19, 2006)