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.) |