BEIJING, Nov. 4 -- The number of passenger trips handled by China's railways skyrocketed 112.4 percent year on year in the first three quarters of this year, official data showed.

More than 2.93 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 3.74 billion tonnes of cargo in the same period, up 0.3 percent from a year earlier.

In the January-September period, fixed-asset investment in the country's railways rose 7.1 percent from the same period last year to 508.9 billion yuan (about 70.88 billion U.S. dollars), the data showed.