China launches world’s longest train to Spain

In an initiative to build a new silk road linking Asia and Europe though Central Asia, China launched a cargo train service connecting world’s largest commodity market in Yiwu with the Spanish capital Madrid.

In an initiative to build a new silk road linking Asia and Europe though Central Asia, China launched a cargo train service connecting world’s largest commodity market in Yiwu with the Spanish capital Madrid.

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The train with 82 containers was the first to travel the entire course of the cargo line on November 18. The journey marks the longest route taken by a freight train, longer still than Russia’s famed Trans-Siberian Railway. While container-borne trade still moves mostly by sea, the growing appetite of the Chinese market for European luxury goods means that Eurasian railway freight is catching up, according to a report in the the Economist.