China-Europe freight train service tops 140,000 trips

SHENYANG, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- A China-Europe freight train bound for Moscow departed Puhe station in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province, at around 11:30 a.m. Thursday, bringing the service's cumulative trips to top 140,000 and transporting goods worth over 560 billion U.S. dollars since 2011.

The milestone comes a decade after the service adopted the unified brand of China Railway Express in June 2016.

Annual trips rose from 1,702 in 2016 to 20,022 in 2025, an average annual increase of more than 30 percent, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. A single month's volume now equals the whole of 2016.

As a flagship project and a landmark brand of the Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Europe freight train service, also referred to as the "steel camel caravans," has established a comprehensive logistics network across Eurasia.

Within China, 96 scheduled routes for trains traveling at 120 km per hour link 132 cities along the western, central and eastern corridors, while overseas the network now runs on three lines: northern, central and southern. Together they reach 237 cities in 26 European countries and more than 100 cities in 12 Asian countries, covering most parts of Eurasia, according to China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway), the national rail operator.

The southern route is now operating on regular basis, running 746 trains in the first nine months of 2026, up 125 percent year on year.

In May, the service set a monthly record of 1,965 trains and 197,000 TEUs.

An official with the logistics center of China Railway said the operator has been advancing infrastructure connectivity and the alignment of standards and rules to build a smooth, efficient, multi-directional network that links rails with sea routes.