BEIJING - China's railway authority plans to put an extra 159 trains into service on Tuesday to cope with booming travel demand, the Ministry of Railways said Tuesday.

In a statement posted on its website, the ministry said that 2.29 million passengers hit the rails on Monday and the country added 152 more trains to accommodate the holiday goers.

The country's trains had carried a total of 85.742 million passengers from January 8 to 23, up 10.8 percent from a year earlier.

The Spring Festival travel season kicked off on January 8 this year, with hundreds of millions of people, mainly migrant workers and college students, heading home for the most important festival in China.

Chinese people are expected to make around 3.16 billion passenger trips this year during the travel rush, up 9.1 percent from a year earlier. Of those journeys, 235 million are likely to be made by train, up 6.1 percent year-on-year.

The travel rush period will end on February 16.