As the clock tower on top of the Beijing Railway Station building struck 10, barely an hour after the ticket office opened, the hopes of the hundreds of winter-coated queuers are fading.

It's a scene of deja vu for the millions of Chinese who travel to their home towns or vacation spots during the Lunar New Year holiday.

To many Chinese who work or study away from home, the odyssey back is cherished as a chance to spend the Lunar New Year eve with family. The Lunar New Year Day, or the Spring Festival, is the main Chinese holiday.

And rail is the cheapest and most convenient transport.

On the freezing square outside Beijing Railway Station, a young man surnamed Zhang is making his third attempt to get a ticket before the festive season. The previous two attempts ended in vain.

"The first time, I got here before 6:00 AM," he says, pulling up the collar of his thick coat and stamping his feet.

Nearby, police are keeping order as the queues lengthen into zigzags, taking every inch of the 40,000-square-meter square.

"I don't know why tickets well out so quickly," Zhang says. "One of my friends once saw someone buying 170 tickets at a time."

However, a public notice posted in the ticketing hall, warns that each customer is limited to buying 10 tickets for one single trip.

"We have strict rules on this," says Zhang Di, a worker at the station.

The Ministry of Railways expects to transport 188 million people during the 40-day peak travel period, including the seven-day government-designated holidays, this year.

Railways Vice Minister Wang Zhiguo said Thursday that about 4.5 million people, 8.5 percent more than last year, took the train every day from Sunday to Wednesday, the first four days of the peak period, or chunyun in Chinese.

Wang attributed the difficulties this year to an overlapping of passenger flows, such as college students, migrant workers, tourists, and those who take advantage of the long holiday to visit families or relatives in other places.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security estimates 120 million migrant workers have left their homes for work in coastal cities. For the Spring Festival, most will pay any price to get a train home.

Only the luckiest get tickets from the railway station, and it is no better for buyers in about 50 authorized ticket offices across Beijing.

Chen Lu, a 23-year-old who works and lives in the downtown district of Xuanwu, queued for six hours on two freezing winter mornings in front of a ticket office.

"A reasonably priced ticket is still impossible to get," she says. "I had to spend more than 500 yuan (about US$73) to take a first-class train to Nanjing, about triple the price of regular trains."

Chen said she also tried to contact the ticket scalpers, but they asked for an extra 100 yuan for each ticket.

Ticket scalpers, known locally as huang niu (literally "yellow ox"), normally have mysterious powers of getting whatever tickets they want. Just like regular passengers, they can return the unsold tickets to the railway at 80 percent of the face value.

"They always have the tickets," Chen says, "and yet we don't know from where."

Like Chen, many passengers have suspicions.

A three-minute video on YouTube on Saturday triggered a wave of anger among thousands of netizens. The video showed a ticketing employee at the Beijing Railway Station was churning out dozens of tickets from the computer while closing the window to queuers.

The station responded that the tickets were to be distributed to authorized offices in other parts of the city.

Vice Minister Wang Thursday apologized to the public on this matter for causing misunderstanding and vowed to investigate the case further.

President Hu Jintao called Wednesday for the Ministry of Railways to "brainstorm for measures" to help travelers over the annual travel peak.

Zhang, 26, finally acquired a hard-seat ticket after three attempts. "This is my only option to go home. I have to sit up for at least 20 hours if Heaven blesses the timely arrival of my train," he says, helplessly.

Despite the tough journey ahead, he still hopes for a happy time ahead with his family in Harbin, 1,400 kilometers north of Beijing.

(Xinhua News Agency January 17, 2009)