Where do temporary trains come from?

During the Spring Festival of 2015, Xi'an Railway Bureau in northwest China's Shannxi province plans to run 77 temporary trains to cope with the travel rush. Many people have experience of taking a temporary train. Do you know where a temporary train comes from?

Engineers of the Passenger Traffic Department of Xi'an Railway Bureau have considered and discussed the route and destination of each temporary train very thoroughly.

The running of a temporary train is geared to satisfying the exceptional needs of passengers, so it should have as many seats as possible. Liu Tongfei, an engineer from the Engineering Department, explains: "For carriages of the same length, the hard-seat carriage can hold 118 passengers; the hard sleeper carriage can hold 66 passengers; while the soft sleeper carriage can only hold 33 passengers. So, most of the temporary trains are made up of hard-seat carriages." The passenger flow is another important aspect of making up the train. "If the passengers are mainly migrant workers and students, the temporary train will be formed by hard-seat carriages. And if the passengers are mainly businessmen and white collars, more sleeper carriages will be added," says Liu.

About 70 days before the running of a temporary train, a detailed plan is decided.

Soon afterwards, standby carriages are transferred to the groupment location and assembled by shunting workers.

The attendants and the carriages are equally important. The fixed train numbers already have fixed personnel allocation, and the need for more service staff is the biggest problem faced by the temporary train. Currently, the Passenger Traffic Department has "borrowed" 1267 people from other departments and they all have basic knowledge of train maintenance or train service. These "borrowed" people will have 80 hours of training before starting to work.

The carriages of the temporary train need to go through a detailed "physical examination" before going into service.

In the next step, bedding, seat covers and other service facilities are put into the carriage. Since December 2014, the Passenger Traffic Department of Xi'an Railway Bureau has put more than 100,000 sets of spare bedding into storage to satisfy the needs of the temporary trains.

Finally, smiling train attendants stand on the platform to welcome passengers to board a well-prepared temporary train, which is ready to go.