From Germany to China: wager on transportation by railway

Nowdays the world is running through the process of globalization with a high speed making significant changes in various spheres affecting even conventional way of our lifestyle. One of the effects is „seamless expanse“ that benefits and succor transportation  making it easier for logistic companies to transpose diverse products around the world effortless.

It delights and terrifies how fast with the help of „two sticks and piece of iron “ commodity can get from point A to B. Presently the demand for tranportation from Germany to China using railways rises since Xi Jinping government bet on the railways as a part oft he economic development project.
In order to achieve goal Sino-German economic forum took place and a new Silk Road project was negotiated. The project will use the railway lines of the Silk Road Economic Belt as a route across Europe and Asia. Because China and Germany are situated at the two ends of the New Silk Road, the origin and destination stations of the Blue Container Train will be Beijing and Duisburg. The Blue Container Train will travel through 11 nations and 27 regions and cities along the area covered by the Belt and Road Initiative, facilitating connections between economic institutions and enterprises, as well as cultural organizations. By vigorously promoting win-win cooperation between both governmental and non-governmental bodies in the 11 nations, the Blue Container Project will encourage joint economic prosperity and cultural integration. The new route strengthened ties between China and Western Europe and improved trade relations.

The question that arises is why specifically the railway? Why this type of transportation? There are some interesting features of rail freight. Freight trains and trains transporting goods can move through any territory covered by rail. Sending goods by rail is a complex, streamlined system involving certain services and specialists: the consignor and his representatives. Employees of the railway consignee. Each link in this chain is responsible for loading, safety, security, timely delivery, acceptance and unloading at the destination. Therefore, this type of transportation has its own characteristics: upon receipt of a bulky shipment, it is necessary to arrange for the provision of specialized unloading equipment; it is necessary to collect all the necessary documentation: contracts, invoices, unique code; documented guarantee of cargo safety. Moreover,despite the large number of proposals of logistics companies for the transportation of shipments by different modes of transport, railway transportation has not lost its relevance. There is an explanation for this: reasonable price, especially when it comes to long-distance travel; environmental independence - speed of delivery and quality of transportation does not depend on weather conditions; security - according to statistics, intentional damage, hacking and theft with this type of transportation are of minimal importance; universality - any cargo can be transported by rail; high load capacity - one freight car is able to accommodate cargo that is not able to transport 3 trucks.

Based on the foregoing, it can be concluded, that need and interest in transportation of cargo by railway from Germany to China is rising and will be even more developed due to countries new Silk Road project.