China-Europe freight trains surpass 140,000 trips

China-Europe freight trains have made more than 140,000 trips, carrying goods worth more than $560 billion, China State Railway Group, the national railway operator, said on Thursday.

The milestone was reached at 11:30 am Thursday, when train X8059 departed from Puhe station in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning province, bound for Moscow.

The network now reaches 237 cities in 26 European countries and more than 100 cities in 12 Asian countries, according to the operator. Within China, 96 scheduled routes designed for speeds of 120 kilometers per hour connect 132 cities.

The expansion has been accompanied by growth in alternative routes. Services along the network's southern corridor made 746 trips in the first nine months of this year, up 125 percent year-on-year.

The operator said it is also working to expand rail-road and rail-sea transport services, extending the network's reach to neighboring countries without cross-border rail connections.

Transport volumes reached a monthly record in May, when China-Europe freight trains made 1,965 trips and carried 197,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, a standard measure of container volume.

Efforts to streamline border procedures have reduced customs clearance times to less than 30 minutes in some cases, the operator said. The daily average number of outbound trains handed over at six major border crossings rose 12.8 percent year-on-year to 51.2 this year.

Traffic flows have also become more balanced. Through September, the ratio of return trips to outbound trips exceeded 90 percent for nine consecutive months.

To provide more predictable delivery times, 22 services with fixed timetables for their entire journeys operate each week between nine Chinese cities and six European cities. These services are designed to meet the cross-border shipping needs of high-end manufacturers.

The operator has also introduced specialized equipment, including temperature-controlled containers and liquid-carrying bags fitted inside 40-foot containers, to accommodate a wider range of cargo. Electronic seals enable shipments to be tracked throughout their journeys and trigger alerts if tampered with.

Vehicles and auto parts, machinery, and electrical and electronic products have become major categories of outbound cargo. Timber, pulp, agricultural products and consumer goods from Europe travel in the opposite direction.

The operator said it will continue working with overseas partners to increase capacity, improve service quality and further balance freight flows in both directions.