China's railway sector handled 1.3 billion tons of cargo and 828 million passengers in the first ten months this year, an increase of 3.3 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively, over the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Railways.

A ministry source said that the sector's income totaled 83.2 billion yuan, a rise of 9 percent on a year-on-year basis.

Passenger volume has a daily average of 2.68 million people last month, an increase of 5.8 percent over October last year, 669, 000 of whom were express passengers, up 12.2 percent.

The railroads carried 2.84 million tons of containers last month and 76,300 cars of cargo daily on average, of which were 30, 000 coal cars.

Rail earnings topped 8.6 billion yuan in October, up 6.7 percent, of which 2.86 billion yuan came from passenger transport, a rise of 16 percent over October last year, and 4.47 billion yuan from cargo freight.

A ministry official said that increased volume in October indicates a favorable situation for the railway sector to realize total earnings of 98.8 billion yuan by the end of this year. (Xinhua)