Mystery of train tickets

Nothing can be weirder than a train with just 0.8 percent of its seats occupied on Saturday last week, the first day of the busy home-bound rush before the traditional Spring Festival on Feb 14.

The vacancy is not even likely in slack season. What is even stranger is the claim by the Shenzhen railway station that tickets had been sold out for this train from South China's special economic zone to Central China's Wuhan.

Then why did passengers who had bought tickets fail to get onboard? Authorities from the railway station explained that it might be because most of the passengers could not get any days off from work and chose to skip the train.