In past 1 year, the whole global has a headache for shipping congestion and sky high ocean rate. Under this circumstance, with the advantages of the good geographic location, European countries have a good supplementary and get recovery quickly through China one belt one road policy via railway.

All the countries around world are busy promoting economic recovery and increasing international trading which make high pressure on supply chains. And the shipping containers are the most common equipment to load cargo from manufacturer to end customer. However, the ocean rate for a 40’HC shipping container is around $20000. Therefore the vessel space and shipping containers are extremely hard to have.

European countries benefit from the cooperation with China by delivering shipping containers via railway, so the transportation pressure is relatively much smaller than the America which is only by delivering shipping containers by sea. The biggest advantage of the China-Europe Railway is the consumed time is only 1/3 of shipping by ocean but cost is just a bit higher. And the shipping containers on China-Europe Railway has less impact by the weather. Therefore, more and more shipping containers are delivered from China to Europe by railway. The China-Europe Railway is just like a belt to deliver cargo in shipping containers to 20+ countries and 90+ cities in Europe.

China-Europe Trains 1

The amount of shipping containers will not be over 41 units on China-Europe Railway Train. Because the train will go across many countries and regions which requires multi transfer in the trip. For example, if the shipping containers are from China to Germany, they are required to be transferred for two times. One stop is between China and Kazakhstan and then there is no transfer required when shipping containers pass through CIS countries such as Russia, Belarus, etc. And another stop will be required when shipping containers travel from the CIS countries to some European countries like Poland. So the limited number of the shipping containers and carriages, on the one hand, is conducive to the transfer, on the other hand, also to adapt to various lines and conditions, such as sharp turns.

According to the data released by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the number of China-Europe freight trains bucked the trend and exceeded 10,000 in 2020.In the face of the severe impact of COVID-19, China-Europe express trains have made full use of the unique advantages of international rail transport, and vigorously handled the transfer of goods by sea and air. In the whole year, 12,406 lines were opened, up 50% year on year and 7.3 times that of 2016. Particularly, in the second half of the year 2020, the number of trains opened every month remained around 1200, which has achieved double-digit year-on-year growth for 10 consecutive months, and more than 1,000 trains opened in a single month for 8 months.

In 2020, China-Europe trains reached 92 cities in 21 countries, 37 more than the same period in 2019, with an increase of 67 percent. In 16 countries, 8 railway container returning points have been built, bringing the total number to 80.

A total of 73 special lines for China-Europe freight trains were laid, 6 more than last year. Three cities, Xi'an, Chongqing and Chengdu, each have more than 2,000 china-Europe trains running each year, accounting for 58% of the country's total. The China Europe train operation began to shift from "point to point" to "hub to hub".

China-Europe Trains 2

The opening of the China-Europe freight train has also made a huge contribution to the global fight against COVID-19.

In 2020, a total of 1.135 million TEUs of cargo were transported, including 9.39 million pieces of epidemic prevention supplies, or 76,000 tons, to Italy, Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands and Lithuania, and distributed to more European countries.

Xi 'an, Yiwu, Wuhan and other cities have also launched the China-Europe Special Train for Epidemic Prevention Supplies, which has won widespread praise from belt and Road countries and the international community.

Some customers of CIMC-Equilink in European countries, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, etc., have begun to try to transport container parts through the China-Europe trains, because they have certain requirements for transportation timeliness. CIMC Equilink provides all kinds of dry container parts,. reefer container parts and iso tank parts. If you are looking for container parts or shipping containers for sale from china , or you just have questions about container declaration and transportation, please visit us by email（info.equilink@cimc.com）or submit a quick quote.