First direct train service from China to the UK arrive in London
The new Silk Road
The East Wind is coming – Robert Williams reports on the new era of rail freight between Britain and China.
L
et’s talk about rail freight. No, seriously. Freight trains don’t often make the news. But the East Wind – the first train to run from Britain to China – was more than your average freight train. It departed in May, carrying goods including vitamins, baby products and pharmaceuticals. Its 34 wagons, carrying 68 containers loaded with household goods such as clothes, socks, suitcases, purses and wallets worth a total of £4m, travelled 7456 miles, making it arguably the longest train journey in the world. The 7500-mile (12,000km) journey from eastern England to eastern China took three weeks, around half the time needed for the equivalent journey by boat. Its route took it from Barking, through the Channel Tunnel into France and then through Belgium, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan before ending its journey in Yiwu in China. The first freight train coming from China arrived in Britain in January 2017, making London the 15th European city to be served by direct trains from China. It has joined desti12 Industry Europe
nations in Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Spain on a transcontinental network of more than 40 routes. Trains heading for Europe also carry high-tech IT products such as laptop computers and mobile phones produced for multinational companies in factories in western China. The cross-continent trade route was officially revitalised in 2013, when a train from Chongqing arrived in Duisburg, Germany via the Yuxinou (Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe) International Railway. By 2016, more than 2100 trains have been dispatched via the Yuxinou Railway, according to statistics from the China Railway Corporation.
One Belt, One Road The train to London is just one part of China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) strategy. It is restoring the ancient ‘Silk Road’ between China and Europe by encouraging investment in Eurasian transport and logistics networks, including rail, to boost Chinese trade and investment, and economic integration.
This 2000 year-old route was once travelled by Chinese silk caravans transporting their goods to Europe and Africa. Less romantic names for the route include the ‘Eurasian Land Bridge’ or ‘Belt and Road Initiative’. What the route does provide is rail links between Pacific seaports in the Russian Far East and China and seaports in Europe; the Trans-Siberian Railway, which runs through Russia and is sometimes called the Northern East-West Corridor; and the New Eurasian Land Bridge or Second Eurasian Continental Bridge, running through China and Kazakhstan. Trains reach Europe using either the southern branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway from northern China, or like the London train, by passing through western China and Kazakhstan and joining the Trans-Siberian at Yekaterinburg. China’s rail system has been linked to the Trans-Siberian via north-eastern China and Mongolia. In 1990 China added a link between its rail system and the Trans-Siberian via Kazakhstan.
