As the Spring Festival travel rush approaches, it's getting harder and harder to buy train tickets. At ticket offices in train stations, migrant workers compare getting a ticket to winning the lottery.

The Spring Festival travel rush this year will last from January 26 to March 6. However, the ticket center has had a quiet day. Very few people have come here to buy tickets.

But a migrant worker surnamed Lin from Guangdong, has been waiting three days at this station for a ticket, in vain.

"Nowadays, people tend to buy train tickets online. I don't know how to surf the internet so I just wait here. Now, there aren't any tickets to my hometown left, not even tickets for standing rooms. Getting a ticket is more difficult than winning the lottery!" Lin said.

Although there are various options to buy a ticket -- through the internet, phone calls and at train stations -- the total amounts of tickets are fixed. Faster methods, such as the internet or the phone, provide higher chances of obtaining a ticket. As a result, very few tickets are left available at train stations.

Another migrant worker surnamed Lei said, "We hear the travel reports from the Railway Ministry every day. But there are no tickets at all! I think the pre-sale of tickets lasts too long. All the tickets are too quickly sold out."

Those who give up on finding a train ticket are forced to go home by bus, which takes longer time and ends up costing seven to eight times more.

Though there are various approaches to book tickets ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year which falls on Feburary 10 this year, it remains very difficult. People look forward to the day when Spring Festival family reunions will no longer be such an arduous and frustrating task.

(CNTV.cn January 22, 2013)