The first train to complete a journey on the world’s longest railway line, connecting Spain and China, has returned home. The 16,156-mile round trip on the new Yixin’ou cargo line through China, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France and Spain took four months. The train arrived laden with cheap goods and returned to China with expensive olive oil.

The 82-container cargo train began its journey in November in the eastern Chinese city of Yiwu. Packed full of Christmas trinkets and decorations, stationery and craft products, it arrived in Madrid on 14 December, in time for the thousands of small shops and Christmas markets to stock up on the cheap Chinese goods. The line is 450 miles longer than the previous record holder, the Trans-Siberian Railway, which connects Vladivostok in the east of Russia, to Moscow. State media in Russia greeted the opening of the Yixin’ou by pointing out that containers on the new line must be changed three times during the journey from China to Spain, because tracks in the seven countries are of different gauges.

Before the Yixin’ou line was opened, goods traded between Europe and China depended on inefficient sea or air transport, meaning higher prices in Europe. “The cargo train will boost economic exchange between Yiwu, the world’s largest small commodity market, and Madrid, Europe’s largest small commodity market,” said Li Huihuan, manager of Yiwu CF International Logistics, which operates the train.

Yiwu, a city of 1.2 million, is a booming example of modern China. The city’s small commodities market is growing at an exponential rate and in 2014 combined imports and exports were valued at $23.7bn, a 28.6 per cent increase on the previous 12 months.

According to the Chinese-state run news agency, Xinhua, 60 per cent of the world’s Christmas trinkets are originally bought and sold in Yiwu’s annual Christmas market. While traders in Madrid’s Plaza Mayor and elsewhere will welcome the opening of the Yixin’ou railway, which should see the prices they pay for nativity scenes and Christmas lights fall, Yiwu is also infamous for being the centre of the world’s illegal counterfeiting industry.

• About
• Latest Posts

The Skibbereen Eagle

In 1898, to widespread bemusement, a small Provincial Newspaper in an equally small town in the South West corner of Ireland sonorously warned the Czar of Russia that it knew what he was up to and he should be careful how he proceeded for “The Skibbereen Eagle” was wise to his game and in future would be keeping its eye on him! It is doubtful that Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, even noticed the Eagle’s admonitions but as history soon proved he should have paid closer attention to the Eagle’s insightful opinions!

Today, powered by its readers and contributors, from its cyber eyries in Ireland and the centres of the Irish Diaspora The Eagle casts its Cold Eye on Life and Death and much in between.

Latest posts by The Skibbereen Eagle (see all)

• Irish Consent - November 15, 2018
• The Poppy stands for Peace - November 11, 2018
• Michael Foot British Patriot - September 15, 2018