The first cargo train to travel on the longest rail route in the world has returned home. It departed from Yiwu in eastern China, a major wholesale centre for small consumer goods, and passed through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany and France to Spain, before making the return journey.
It took four months to complete the 16,000-mile round trip on the new Yixin’ou cargo line — leaving China laden with Christmas goods and returning from Madrid with olive oil, wine and ham.
The new railway route is the longest in the world — even longer than Russia’s famous Trans-Siberian railway linking Moscow to Vladivostok, which is near Russia’s border with China. The train carried 82 shipping containers.
Chinese officials are hoping that the train route to Spain can stimulate a new economic prosperity, perhaps by linking the Chinese city of Chongqing to Duisburg — a steel-making town and one of Germany’s most-important transport and commercial hubs.
Furthermore, Euro Cargo Rail — a subsidiary of German freight operator DB Schenker Rail — is studying the possibility of starting a regular service between China and Spain during the first half of next year, with two monthly trips.
Roughly 80% of global trade goes by boat, as freight train services face technical and bureaucratic hurdles that vary from country to country.
For example, the goods sent from China to Madrid had to be transferred to different wagons at three points during the trip because of the different track gauges in different countries. However, DB Schenker Rail says that rail transport is less expensive, more environment-friendly and faster than by sea.