Rail freight from Europe to China and back: brakes and potential

Posted by George Raymond on October 31, 2021

Containers have been rolling by rail between Asia and Europe for decades. The proposition is simple: rail should be faster than sea and cheaper than air. In recent years, China has subsidised trains to Europe. In the process, operators and customers have had to deal with problems of shipment visibility, political conflicts, different track gauges, inflexible trains from city to city and now the Covid crisis. Nevertheless, one major operator’s rail traffic between China and Europe has grown by 324% since 2017. Here’s my report.

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