All was dark and quiet outside, at 5 a.m. on January 13, with temperatures plummeting to 22 degrees Celsius below zero. Chen Lili, an operations director at Zhangjiakou Railway Station in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, was at home getting ready to leave for work.
At 5:30 a.m., Chen arrived at the station where her morning shift would commence at 6 a.m. sharp. After changing into her work clothes, putting on anti-COVID-19 protective gear and gathering the necessary work equipment, like walkie-talkies and audio and video recorders, Chen headed over to her designated train platform. This was her 10th Spring Festival travel rush, in Chinese, started on January 7 and will last until February 15. It is estimated to see roughly 2.1 billion passenger trips, up 99.5 percent from the same period last year. A significant proportion of these trips will be made by train.
