REAL LIFE NEWS: NEW TRAIN FROM CHINA TO LONDON REVIVES THE SILK ROAD
by Hazed
I’ve always been fascinated by those long-distance, cross-border train services like the Orient Express. One of the few things I remember from geography lessons when I was young is a list of stations on the Trans-Siberian Railway – exotic-sounding places like Omsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk and Vladivostok.
Now there’s a new railway route to add to my collection: a direct rail service from China to London.
The railway journey is, sadly, for freight and not passengers. It takes 18 days and involves switching containers between a number of different wagons and locomotives because some countries’ railways have larger gauges. Still, it works out cheaper than air freight and faster than sea.
The service starts in the city of Yiwu, on China’s east coast. It crosses that country then passes through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium and France before entering the UK via the Channel Tunnel then terminating its 7,500 mile journey at the Eurohub freight terminal in Barking, in east London.
The 44 containers on the first train were filled with suitcases, clothes and household goods destined for Europe, valued at around £4 million.
The service is part of China’s programmed to revive the ancient Silk Road trading routes to the West.
The trains are due to arrive in Barking every week. I don’t think there’s a return journey, though – we don’t export enough stuff that the Chinese want.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38666854
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/first-direct-freight-train-from-china-to-uk-arrives-in-barking-a3443756.html
