High Speed Rail tickets for the Chinese New Year went on sale over the Internet yesterday, but a sudden influx of online orders soon caused the system to overload and crash, which lasted about 20 minutes before the service was back to normal.

The Taiwan High Speed Rail began selling tickets for Lunar New Year travel just after midnight, and members of Mr. Kang's family were busy working the phones and the computer keyboard to secure tickets.

They had no luck and in the morning, still had to go to the train station to buy tickets.

Many people experienced trouble on the ticketing system, and arrived at the train station as early as possible to secure good seats.

The high speed rail said that their booking system can accommodate14,000 people simultaneously, but within the first 10 minutes of the sale, there was an influx of 30,000 people, which led the system to be overloaded, and 20 minutes later the site resumed normal service.

Within the first hour, 77,000 tickets were sold, with tickets still available on all trains.

The traffic on the high speed rail's ticket system was closely monitored by the Taiwan Railway Administration who will begin selling eastern route tickets on the 13th and western routes on the 14th.

In addition to providing 4,000 phone lines for booking and internet bookings.

This year's Lunar New Year festival extends from January 31 to February 8th, with the Taiwan High Speed Railway having 307 trains, with Taiwan Railway opening 292 trains, with many using the internet, and telephones and even sales on the spot.

The high speed rail reminds everyone that it has canceled open seating during the holiday as all seats will be reserved.