Felicitous encounter with Thai student leads to life of happiness, breaking the speed of loneliness, Xu Fan reports.

Dumplings, family feasts, and fireworks — these are the hallmarks of Spring Festival. But for Ma Wendong, a 29-year-old freight train driver in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, this year's holiday celebrating the Year of the Snake was one of his busiest periods of work.

As dawn broke, Ma left his home and traveled 40 kilometers to Xinfeng, a town in eastern Xi'an. There, at a local railway station of the China Railway Xi'an Group, the regional railway operator, Ma boarded the X8225 China-Europe freight train (Xi'an), which is more than 50 cars long.

His job was to drive the empty train from Xinfeng to Yan'an, where the cars would be loaded — mainly with coal. He would then drive the train to Xi'an International Port Station and fill the remaining empty cars with imported goods such as auto parts, handmade items, and textiles, bringing the train's weight to 5,000 metric tons.