China's latest cyberwar: the battle for Chinese New Year train tickets

Beijing

CHINESE tradition requires people to gather at their family home before the Lunar New Year begins - on Feb 19 this year - with authorities expecting more than 2.8 billion trips to be taken over the festive period.

Rail is one of the favoured ways to travel and while historically there have been endless queues at the ticket windows, China's official train booking website 12306.cn is helping to relieve congestion in stations and kiosks.