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All aboard for Barking

[ January 5, 2017   //   ]

China Rail operated its first through freight service to the UK on 3 January when the first in what is billed as a weekly service departed Yiwu, in eastern Zhejiang province. The intermodal train was expected to take two weeks to cover the 12,000 mile route via the Channel Tunnel and the High Speed 1 rail link to Barking, east London – the only route from the tunnel cleared for high-cube containers and intermodal units.

Although China Rail already operates services to terminals in continental Europe, this is believed to be the first service to the UK and is part of the Chinese government’s new Silk Road strategy to boost links with the West.

Although billed as a direct service, the journey would involve transhipment at the border between China and Kazakhstan and between Belarus and Poland as those two countries, along with the Transiberian rail route through Russia operate on the Russian broad gauge as opposed to the standard gauged used in China and most of western Europe.

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