Groupage freight traffic has been reinvigorated on the ‘Iron Silk Road’ – the China/Europe rail freight route – but the option of the overland route, faster than ocean freight and certainly cheaper than air cargo, has also attracted larger scales of consignments.
A chemical industry giant in Germany shipped its first block chain to China from the Rhine terminal in Ludwigshafen. The block train, made up of 42 containers of cargo, took 14 days to travel via Poland, Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan, less than half the time of an ocean transit.