BEIJING -- Chinese railways recorded 10.39 million trips on Tuesday, the first day of this year's Spring Festival travel rush, also known as chunyun, according to data released Wednesday by China State Railway Group Co., Ltd.

As of 8:30 am Wednesday, the nation's train ticket booking platform 12306 had sold 120 million train tickets for chunyun, a 40-day period that ends on Feb 22, according to the company.

On Wednesday, the second day of the travel rush period, 11 million railway trips are expected to be made across the country, the company said, adding that an additional 554 trains will be operated to meet the growing demand.

Passenger flows will be especially huge in major cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, on Wednesday, it said.

This year marks China's first chunyun after UNESCO inscribed Spring Festival on its intangible cultural heritage list in December last year.

More than 510 million passenger trips are expected to be handled by the country's railways, with an average of 12.75 million trips daily, an increase of 5.5 percent compared with 2024, according to a forecast by transport authorities.