BEIJING, Oct. 13 -- The number of passenger trips handled by China's railways skyrocketed 111.4 percent year on year in the first eight months of this year, official data showed.

About 2.61 billion passenger trips were made via the country's railways during the period, according to the Ministry of Transport.

China's railway network also transported around 3.32 billion tonnes of cargo in the same period, up 0.5 percent over one year earlier.

In the January-August period, fixed-asset investment in the country's railways rose 7.2 percent from the same period last year to 432 billion yuan (about 60.19 billion U.S. dollars), the data also revealed.