CHINA-OBOR: CONNECTIVITY

The first freight train linking China directly to the UK arrived in the eastern Chinese city of Yiwu on April 29, 2017, after a 12,000-kilometre (7,500-mile) trip, becoming the world's second-longest rail route. The train departed London on April 10 and passed through France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan during its 20-day trip before arriving in Yiwu in Zhejiang province. London is the 15th city to be linked to a new freight network offered by the state-run China Railway Corporation, The new route is longer than Russia's famous Trans-Siberian railway, but about 1,000 kilometres shorter than the record-holding China-Madrid link, which opened in 2014.

 

(Comment: The train, named the East Wind, has much less carrying capacity -- just 88 shipping containers, according to the Yiwu government, compared to the 10,000 to 20,000 containers cargo ships can carry.)







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