Rails, roads jammed with holiday travelers

As the national weeklong vacation drew to an close on Friday, reality showed again that getting back to town can be just as hard as leaving it, especially for residents of major metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai.

A record-breaking 12.57 million people were estimated to travel by train on Friday alone, according to China Railway.

Similar mass migrations were common during this year's National Day vacation, with more than 10 million people traveling by train on each of the eight days - Sept 30 to Friday - of the holiday. That brought the total of train trips to 108 million, up 9.3 percent year-on-year, during the total 10-day travel spree from Sept 28 to Oct 7, according to the company.