During the Spring Festival travel period every year, tickets for popular lines are "hard to get", but difficulty in buying does not mean that they are impossible to buy. As long as the waitlist function of 12306 is used correctly, most people can basically buy tickets to go home. According to reports, the China Railway Group recently stated that during the Spring Festival this year,The success rate of 12306's waitlist redemption is over 75%. Passengers can also extend the waitlist redemption time by submitting multiple waitlist orders with combinations of "dates, train numbers, and seats" to increase the waitlist success rate.
On the 12306 App, each user can submit 6 waiting orders at the same time. Each order can select 3 travel dates. Up to 60 "date + train number" combinations can be made, and multiple seat categories can be selected.
When submitting an order, be sure to check "Accept new trains". When additional trains appear, the system will automatically cash it for you.
As for why it is necessary to use the waiting function of 12306 to grab tickets, in addition to being an official and formal ticket sales channel, in some scenarios, the number of people waiting will directly determine the opening or reconnection of trains.
Relevant comrades from the Guangzhou Bureau of National Railways said that the railway department will conduct dynamic monitoring and dynamic adjustments of ticket amounts in real time.Based on the data on waiting orders, analyze popular routes and high-demand periods, and comprehensively consider available vehicles, line slots and station capacity to adjust and increase transport capacity. There are two main ways to cash out the waitlist:
The first is heavy-duty multiple trains.
For example: after the Guangzhou Bureau of State Railways monitored that the number of waiting tickets from Guangzhou South to Chongqing West reached 2,033 on February 2, it promptly arranged for the reconnection of the G3722 train and reconnected the single-group 8-car EMU into 16 cars, directly doubling the transport capacity.
The second is to open additional temporary trains.
For example, under the premise of ensuring maintenance, the first animal inspection train from February 6 to 8 will depart 20 minutes in advance. In this short 20 minutes, 4 additional temporary trains can be run, and nearly 4,000 waiting tickets can be redeemed.
Since the start of the Spring Festival in 2026, the Guangzhou Bureau of State Railway has closely monitored the waiting data, maximized the number of trains and reconnected multiple trains to achieve "one map per day" and operate trains according to the new route map every day.
On the first day of Spring Festival travel, according to ticket and waitlist data, the Guangzhou Railway Bureau operated 3,272 trains, 69 more than last year. During the Spring Festival travel rush, it is expected that a maximum of 4,499 passenger trains can be arranged in a single day, a year-on-year increase of 9.8%.
