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Intercontinental test freight train arrives back in China
I’m curious as to what the financial consequences were. Also, I would love to see of map of the route taken. That might make a good map of the month.
“Because of differing track gauges the train used four separate sets of flat cars with the containers transloaded three times.” Sounds like only the containers made the whole trip.
That’s like the story of the grandfather’s ax being the best ever made… had to change handles 3 times and heads once but still the best ax ever.
Does Talgo make a container flat?
China is encouraging a single gauge rail route that bypassed Russia. One leg China is working on is via Afghanistan, Iran & Turkey to Europe.
The Chinese are thinking very long term. IE 50-100 years from now.
On wide gauge track it is fairly easy to add a Standard gauge rail. Politically adding that rail is another matter. Money, lots of Money can over ride the Political barriers.
Well, we’ll know when Russia has a friendly government. They will convert to standard gauge. Big project, but lots of jobs in the non-defense sector. Spain should convert, too. Look at the high-wide clearances on the old Erie RR, which was originally wide-gauge. China could finance the conversions.
I agree completely with William McFadden. Since they had to transload the containers three times because of different track gauges, it wasn’t really the same train!
Perhaps there’ll runs container trains from China to Britain?
The chinese make really good model trains, they could get here a lot quicker!
It’s an interesting reminder that the world economy is globalising faster and faster, where’s it all going to end?