Passengers often can't take direct route home

BEIJING - After shivering and staying awake for 35 hours on the train, Su Yue arrived at Xi'an Railway Station, Shaanxi province. But this was not the end of the 20-year-old college student's trip back home for the Spring Festival.

She grabbed a taxi at dawn on Saturday for a 40-minute ride to the airport to catch a flight that would land after another three hours in her home city of Urumqi, in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Su's 45-year-old mother, who had been waiting at the airport, said her heart ached at the sight of her daughter's unkempt hair and weary face.