A few weeks ago, Jodi lined up at a train ticket salespoint for two hours just to find out that there were no tickets left from Shanghai to Changsha.  Many were worse off:

<quote>The scene in Shanghai was appalling. 

Long lines were seen wrapping around hundreds of ticket offices across the city. Outside of Putuo Stadium, a temporary venue selling train tickets, more than 2,000 people queued up overnight in the cold and rain. 

The hopes of many were dashed when they were told after many hours of waiting that the tickets for the next 10 days were sold out. Many had to start all over again, standing in the lengthy line for a ticket ten days later. 

Through the intervention of Mayor Han Zheng, those people were finally allowed to queue inside the stadium, although a ticket home was still not guaranteed due to an inadequate railway transport capacity and inept management. 

The mayor's mediation certainly made the lives of those farmers-turned-workers less miserable during the wet cold nights. But those who expect migrant workers to be tearfully grateful for this symbolic gesture are ignoring the dire reality. 

Why was there no giant screen board or broadcast service informing people that some trains were completely booked so many didn't even have to waste time in the lines? 

Why were the ticket offices not open 24 hours a day since there was such a huge demand? 

Why were there not enough volunteers making those in line feel more comfortable and respected? And why did the move to open the stadium come so late? 

These actions are certainly not rocket science for a city like Shanghai, or China's other major cities, where migrant workers suffer from similar situation.</quote>

The Chinese train system is really ridiculously inefficient and it is my opinion that it should be privatized, or at least marketized, as soon as possible.  The writer above (source: the <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-01/21/content_4080403.htm" title="Xinhua: Stop paying lip service to woes of migrant workers">China Daily</a>) gives some great ideas, but how about some longer-term solutions like online-booking, or at least telephone booking; earlier pre-booking dates; and simplest of all, raising prices to encourage people not to waste their time with trains, and look for other ways home instead.

Jodi and I ended up taking a sleeper bus.