Record day for rail as holiday begins

Shanghai three main railway stations handled a record 480,000 passengers yesterday, the first day of the seven-day National Day holiday.

Increased capacity, with more trains added for the holiday, as well as pleasant weather, contributed to the increase, railway authorities said.

The previous record was on the same day last year, when the Shanghai, Shanghai Hongqiao and Shanghai Southern stations dealt with 427,600 passengers.

Interprovincial highways also saw heavy traffic yesterday with congestion causing vehicles leaving the city to line up for hours before reaching highway exit points.

An accident on Tuesday night on the Liuhe Bridge in neighboring Jiangsu Province caused congestion at the G15 highway's Zhuqiao exit early yesterday with the Shanghai Road Administration Bureau reporting a queue 4 kilometers long by 8am.

There was also congestion at the G1501, G40 and G2 entrances because of minor collisions.

A Shanghai woman surnamed Zhao said it took her eight hours to drive from downtown Shanghai to Qixia Mountain in Nanjing, Jiangsu's capital, double the usual time.

"We set out as early as 4:30am to avoid congestion, but still we didn't arrive until 12:30pm," Zhao said.

"We encountered serious traffic jams during the Suzhou and Wuxi sections on the expressway. After that, traffic condition were much better," she said.

A total of 1.12 million vehicles hit the highways yesterday, a 20 percent increase compared to last year, traffic police said. They are expecting a total of 7.3 million vehicles on the city's highways during the holiday.

The congestion also caused minor delays to long distance buses from Shanghai Long Distance Bus Station, which sent 70,000 passengers on their way yesterday, mostly to Shandong, Henan and Jiangsu provinces.

Station officials said they expecting fewer travelers from today, most of whom would be taking short bus trips.