bbc.co.uk/news/business-38654176
On 3 January in Yiwu in eastern China, a bright orange locomotive pulling 44 containers laden with suitcases, clothes and an assortment of household goods set off on a 7,500-mile (12,000km) journey to western Europe.
Ten containers were taken off at the German cargo hub of Duisburg. The rest made up the first cargo train from China to arrive in London at Barking’s Eurohub freight terminal.
London is the 15th European city to find its way on to the ever-expanding map of destinations for China’s rail cargo. Last year, 1,702 freight trains made the voyage to Europe, more than double the 2015 figure.
Yiwu Timex Industrial Investments, which is running this service with China’s state-run railways, says prices are half that of air cargo and cut two weeks off the journey time by sea.
Market demandThe UK’s biggest supermarket, Tesco, doesn’t have any goods on this particular train but does use rail to carry toys, electrical goods, homeware and clothing from China to European rail hubs such as Bratislava in Slovakia and Krasnaje in Belarus.
Alistair Lindsay, Tesco’s head of global logistics, says the supermarket prefers shipping its goods because this is the most environmentally friendly way, as well as offering the best value for money, but that “where we need to move products quicker we have that option to do it by rail”.
This decision would normally be driven by customer demand for particular products, he says.