Relief for lucky Chinese boarding few trains moving

By John Ruwitch

GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - Lucky is how Zhou Hongguo said he felt, rolling his suitcase down the platform to a northbound train that was about to head out of Guangzhou.

For days, tens of thousands of people have besieged the train depot in this city in southern China, trying desperately to get on trains that will take them to their home towns ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins on Wednesday.

With many trains canceled or delayed due to disruptions from the worst winter storms to hit parts of China in a half century, to finally be moving was something special.

In the late afternoon and evening on Thursday, trains were departing at a rate of roughly four per hour after days of delays due to heavy snows in provinces up the tracks.

Police were tightly controlling the entrance to the station. Even so, at least once, crowds shoved their way past cordons or vaulted fences to get inside.

Unlike many others who have been waiting for days in intermittent rain as temperatures hovered above freezing, Zhou came to the station for the first time earlier that day.

"People just pushed their way into the station, and I happened to be there. I saw several people knocked down," said Zhou, who works at a motorcycle engine plant in the factory-studded Pearl River Delta region.

As he talked, other travelers lugging buckets, babies and luggage ran by to secure seats in cars further down the platform. One man banged on a window, hoping it would slide open so he could climb in to sit by his friends.