ACUTE WEATHER MIGHT CAUSE INFLUX OF TRAIN TRAVELLERS

By Vincent Low

BEIJING, Feb 8 (Bernama) -- Acute weather in the coming week might choke the
railway system which is currently burdened with the task of handling the Spring
Festival rush.

China's Railways Ministry spokeman Wang Yongping said the shutdown of
highways
and airports due to the bad weather would lead to a sudden influx of travellers
using the railways.

In a special briefing to the foreign media at the Beijing South Railway
Station Sunday, he said the meteorological department had forcast heavy rain in
central and southern China, and snow and fog in northern China next week.

Wang said, although the ministry had previously encountered bad weather
during
similar rush periods, a sudden influx of passengers would add pressure to the
railways system.

The railway system is expected to handle 210 million passengers during the
40-day Spring Festival period.

However, Wang said the ministry had drawn up a contingency plan to increase
ad
hoc train services to meet the demand.

"We will stop goods train services, if necessary, to pave the way for
passenger transport which is our priority. We will also move more coaches from
non-peak stations to stations with heavy load of passengers," he added.

So far, the ministry has moved 836 coaches from Urumqi, Shenyang, Lanzhou
and Kunming stations to meet the demand for coaches in Guangzhou and Shanghai
stations.

Apart from the existing Tianjin-Beijing Express lines, two high-speed
express lines have begun operations, beginning this year.

They are the Guanzhou-Wuhan and Zhengzhou-Xian lines.

-- BERNAMA