By the end of , China's high-speed railway network stretched 35, km, up more than 5, km from one year earlier. Thanks to the expanding railway network, a once slow and crowded journey during the Spring Festival travel rush is becoming an easier and cozier experience. Official data showed that over 3 billion trips are expected to be made during the day travel rush that started on Jan.
As more cities are linked with the country's high-speed railway network and more technologies and services are introduced, a once slow and crowded journey is becoming an easier and cozier experience.
The word "Chunyun" first appeared in China in the s when an increasing number of rural laborers flocked into big cities to find higher-paid jobs. They would return to their hometowns once a year to celebrate the Lunar New Year with their families.
Li Tengfei, a year-old salesman working in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou, is among the millions of passengers returning home during the holiday. This year, Li's journey back home took half the time thanks to the operation of a high-speed railway line in his home city of Fuyang in eastern China's Anhui Province.
The over hour journey was a nightmare," said Li, who traveled home with his fiancee by bullet train this year. As a major labor export city, Fuyang has a total population of about In December , the city was included in the country's high-speed railway network, witnessing the historic moment of all 16 prefecture-level cities in the province entering the era of high-speed trains.
