China’s railways carried about 3bn tons of goods in the first 11 months of 2009, according to the Ministry of Railways, exceeding its target by 64.35m tons. The total number of rail passenger journeys over the same period reached 1.413bn, up 4.4 per cent year-on-year.

Heavy snow in northern and central parts of China in November affected both road and air transport. However, rail transport appeared to be less impacted, with 110m rail journeys made during the month, up 2.8 per cent compared with the same period last year.