Freight train from China reaches London

The starting point of the train was Yiwu in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. The train took around 18 days to get to London, twice as fast as the sea-going vessel. The train is mainly loaded with textiles and other consumer goods. In the Duisburg container terminal, the 34x40' containers specific to Great Britain are transferred to special DB container platforms approved for the Eurotunnel. With Great Britain, another destination has been added to the rail link between China and Europe.

DB and its partners have been running weekly container trains on the world's longest railway line since 2011. It connects Duisburg and Hamburg with Wuhan, Chongquing and Harbin and, since mid-2016, Hamburg with the Chinese province of Hefei. A total of around 40,000 containers were transported by train on the legendary Silk Road in 2016. DB expects a volume of around 100,000 containers by 2020. The journeys over the 10,000 to 12,000 km routes usually take between 12 and 16 days, including several loads of containers on different gauges. The service’s clients sell goods that must be delivered quickly, e.g. seasonal (special) offers in the clothing industry and expensive goods such as car parts and electronics.