国内英语新闻:China's National Day holiday railway passengers hit 60.75 mln

BEIJING, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's railways carried 60.75 million passengers nationwide around the seven days of National Day holidays and one day of Mid-Autumn Festival, the Ministry of Railways said on Friday.

    The figure was 2.18 million more or 3.7 percent up from the same period last year, according to the ministry.

    The peak transport season lasted for eleven days from Sept. 28 to Oct. 8.

Passengers queue to receive security check at the subway station entrance of Beijing Railway Station in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 7, 2009. As the National Day holidays are about to end, the railway transportation witnessed a travel peak all over the nation.

China's railways carried a record high of 6.93 million people nationwide on Oct. 1, the National Day. The previous record was set on Oct. 5 in 2008 when China's railways carried 6.48 million passengers.

    This year, China's National Day holidays and the Mid-Autumn Festival, a key festival in China for family re-union, overlapped. More people working far away from home chose to go back for family re-union in the eight-day holidays.