Reporter's diary: Experience China’s first day of travel rush

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02:00

It's that time of the year in China - the holiday rush is on. Millions are on the move, and our reporter, Jonathan Betz joined some of them at Beijing's busiest train stations, and it is quite a sight to see.

I want to show you something. Performances and safety demonstrations are going on in the crowds, and some are singing and dancing.

Three billion trips will be made in China over this travel period - 400 million by train alone.

It's been described as the world's largest human migration, and keep in mind the actual holiday - Chinese New Year - isn't for two more weeks. But many people like to head out early to try to beat the real crunch. So for the next 40 days, traveling across China is going to be exceptionally crowded.

These days it can't be difficult to find an empty set.

Many of these passengers have a long, exhausting day of travel ahead of them.

This one station will see 140,000 people come through here on the first day of travel rush.

These are the lucky ones to get a seat. As you can imagine, a lot of tickets sell out well in advance. This train is headed to Hubei Province - it's a 2.5-hour trip. But many people are facing many hours on the road.

Railway officials have taken steps to make it smoother. They've added workers, beefed up security and launched mobile boarding passes - all with the aim of making the trip home to see their family a little bit quicker.