SHANGHAI - This story is a translation from a blog post on Tianya.com.

January 4, 2009. I got up at 6 o’clock and went to the train station to buy a ticket to go back home for spring festival. My hometown is in Xichuan and I am working in Cixi, Ningbo in Zhejiang province. I have just graduated, so this is the first year I have to travel from Zhejing to Sichuan for spring festival.

In order to purchase a ticket during “Chun Yun” (Spring Festicval Travel), I worked to find the fastest way home (there isn't a direct train from Ningbo to my hometown).

Now I will tell you what happened to me that day. I left my apartment at 7 am. At about 7:42 am I arrived at CIXI Transport Company, the train ticket sales office. (Address: Hu Shan Town station road. No.7-9 Tel: 0574-93891323. Hours: 7 am - 9 pm.)

It said they started to sell tickets at 7:00 am. However, the guy before me in line told me the office started selling at 7:30 am. They started to sell 10 minutes before I arrived and 30 minutes later than the time they should start. So basically, there were no tickets sold in the 30 minute block between 7 and 7:30.

Around 7:42 there were already more than 50 people waiting in line. Everybody was shivering in the cold weather. I guessed they had been waiting here for quite a long time. A poster hanging in front of the office said: “Crack down on the illegal sale of train tickets” and there was a supervision phone number listed. I chatted with other people while waiting. At around 8:45, people in front me started to move. They were that tickets for trains to Chengdu and Guiyang had already sold out. To confirm this, I went to the front of the line and saw a blackboard with the information written on it, “Tickets for trains to Chengdu, Guiyang, and Chongqing have all been sold out.” I felt so sad when I saw it, but I didn’t give up and I asked the staff there (male, around 50) “Hello, ticket to Chengdu...” I hadn’t even finished my sentence when he cut me off and said impolitely, "No tickets. All gone.  Didn't you see it on the blackboard?"

I walked back to the end of the line, some people waiting there asked me if there were any tickets left. A guy who wanted to buy a ticket to Chongqing told me: “Don’t give up, they had that board hanging there in the early morning. We have waited for a long time, we have to ask them.”

Around 10:30am, I had moved in to the main office (the line is 50 meters long and I waited for almost three hours to get close to the ticket window). Why did it take so long? There was just one female worker selling tickets! She was really rude. Everyone had to bear her screaming and criticism. There were 12 people in front of me now. I waited another 25 minutes for my turn. During this 25 minutes, the woman made four phone calls and three of them were calls she placed out. Her black phone and yellow phone were in front of her on the computer desk. She spoke a local dialect, so I didn’t understand what she was talking about on the phone. However, after watching her make and receive several phone calls, I got it. She would pick up the phone at first, then while listening to the person on the other end, she typed something on the computer. All the customers had to wait for her to finish her phone calls. Lots of customers were not locals, so I bet few knew what she was talking about on the phone either. Afer typing on the computer, a ticket came out of the ticket machine, and she just took it and put it in a pen box in front of her as if no one was watching. I noticed that there were about 50 tickets in the pen box already. And there was a binder of tickets on her desk, too.

It was so weird. This was just a ticket agent. According to regulations, they had no right to refund a ticket, so why did they have so many tickets? Or were these just usedor invalid tickets. For example, maybe she typed the wrong city? I gave up this thought immediately after I saw she printed out another ticket while she was on the phone and put it in the box. Were the tickets for people who booked through phone calls or online? That’s impossible! I called 11185 (Ticket reservation hotline) and the Ningbo Train station hotline the day before yesterday and asked about booking tickets, the answer I got was that they had already ceased any kind of ticket booking.

While I was wondering, two other guys entered the ticket office and started to whisper with the woman. Customers had to wait again until they finished talking. She issued another ticket after their conversation.

Finally, it was my turn.

Me: Hello, Do you still have a ticket to Chengdu?

Woman: No!

Me: Do you have a ticket to Kunming?

Woman: No, to Chengdu, to Chongqing, to Kunming, tickets from today to the 13th are all sold out.

(During the Spring Festival travel period, you can buy tickets 10 days before the travel date. For example, on January 4th, you can purchase tickets for January 13)

Netizens comments:

sippi　 2009-1-5　2:39:31　
Haha, this is China! There are definitely some “under the table deals”.
It is so common that people take their personal gains by abusing the authority. I hope everyone can get home safe and sound.

PLA86250-52 2009-1-5　2:47:21！
Ministry of Railways said: Why it is so hard to buy a train ticket? Because the ticket is too cheap!!”

过期当票　2009-1-5　5:11:23
No matter how angry you are, you can not solve the problem. This is reality. How many people complained? Everybody knows what happened behind the curtain.The pictures you’ve taken are valuable proof, but it can not change the reality. Buy ticket a from scalpers. 　

s65　　2009-1-5　8:59:56
The tickets were definitely for scaplers. This is an open secret and hidden rules in this industry. Like melamine in the dairy industry.

炎黄子孙2008　2009-1-5　9:03:33　
I finally got the ticket from Zhenjiang to Guiyang. I literally waited in line for 3 days. 　

nuonuo1111 2009-1-5　9:33:34　
Ticket sales people and scalpers haven't been working together for just a short time. A few years ago when I went to the train station to buy a ticket, I stood in line for half a day.  I told the sales person I wanted to buy 3 ticket to XX, she just ignored me totally and issued tickets by herself. After almost a hundred tickets were issued, she threw me 3 tickets. The tickets were from Beijing to a final stop, different to where I wanted to go. I was supposed to buy tickets from Beijing to XX, which was a place in between. She told me there were no tickets to where I wanted to go, just these ones. I had to pay double for a ticket!

JHBO79311 2009-1-5　10:21:50
Good post! I really hope the Railways Ministry can see this post. Their regulations and rules are just for show!

It is so hard to buy a train ticket during spring festival period every year. In many cities, the ticket sell office and agent are like the post described. People who are waiting in line are hardly to get one ticket, but people who has contacts inside can get whatever ticket at whatever time they want. People who are waiting in line can just purchase high price ticket from scalpers.