China's railway passengers reach 238 mln
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Xinhua, August 14, 2011
China's railway traffic remained busy during the summer travel season this year, with about 238 million passengers traveling by train between July 1 and Aug. 10, up 27.12 million from the same period last year, the Ministry of Railways (MOR) said Sunday.
The country's railways transported 5.67 million passengers during the first 10 days of August, up 10.8 percent year-on-year, said the ministry in a statement on its website.
The ministry expects another travel peak later this summer, driven by increasing numbers of vacationers and students returning from summer trips, as well as cotton farmers returning to west China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in late August.
The ministry has vowed to improve the management of its train schedules and avoid delays caused by bad weather and construction.
The ministry announced last week that it has ordered its high-speed trains to run at slower speeds, as well as reorganized bullet train schedules nationwide, for safety reasons.
The ministry cut the number of high-speed trains running between Beijing and Shanghai to 66 pairs from 88 pairs per day, effective as of Aug. 16.
The State Council, or China's Cabinet, also ordered increased safety checks after a fatal train collision that killed 40 people last month raised concerns over the safety of the country's high-speed railways.
