These migrant workers are among the lucky ticket buyers at Shanghai Railway Station who were able to book their journeys home ahead of the upcoming Spring Festival, one of the most important Chinese festivals for family reunions. The city started selling railway tickets for the first day of the spring festival travel peak on Thursday. Some people waited overnight to assure a place in line, but many went away disappointed.
People camped in the cold on New Year's Eve so they could get an early place in line for coveted train tickets that would ensure them an early trip home for the Spring Festival.
Many were out of luck.
As dawn broke on New Year's Day, 30,000 people were lined up at railway stations in Shanghai to buy tickets for their holiday homecomings. The lines were somewhat shorter the following day, but ticket buyers still numbered 15,000, Lin Ronggui, a railway police officer, said yesterday.
The reason is that Thursday was the first day that people were allowed to buy tickets for departure on January 11, the start of the Spring Festival travel peak.
The crowds were mainly migrants from hinterland provinces who work in Shanghai. Tickets to Sichuan, Jiangxi and Hunan provinces were in high demand.
Tickets to Chengdu, capital of western China's Sichuan Province, sold out in only 22 minutes for travel through January 11 after the windows opened on Thursday.
The entire travel period for the holiday, which starts on January 25, the Lunar New Year's Eve, runs for 40 days.
"Some passengers had to sleep over in the stations in order to get tickets," said an attendant at Shanghai South Railway Station.
Rail operators opened as much space as possible to allow passengers to wait indoors, but many ticket hopefuls spent a night outside in freezing conditions.
Some stayed even after railway police handed out numbers to the crowd that would allow travelers to keep their place in line while going home for the night.
Armed police joined the railway's officers to maintain order in the ticketing areas.
Crowds were also huge in Shanghai's underground. The city's eight Metro lines handled a record of 4.3 million passengers on the last day of 2008.