Delivery drones get written about with great gusto, with newspapers following technology firms such as Amazon and Google in their progress with the technology. However, the less glamorous but more conventional logistics method, freight trains, managed to steal back the column inches at the start of the year with the news of the first direct service from China to the UK arriving at Barking rail terminal in east London.
The inaugural train carried 34 containers holding £4 million worth of clothes and other goods. The 7,400-mile journey took the freight train from the Chinese city of Yiwu in Zhejiang province to London, crossing Kazhakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium and France en route. The aim of the service is to cut down the time and cost of moving freight between the two countries.
Operated by China’s Yiwu Timex Industrial Investment company, the service is scheduled to take around 18 days door to door – although the first trip was made in 17. The company has previously run freight trains twice a week between China and Madrid via Duisburg, Germany, for more than a year. The London service will run once a week during its trial period.
“This cargo train service highlights the important trade partnership between the UK and China post-Brexit,” said Oscar Lin, manager of the UK-based Onetwothree Logistics, which is handling customs clearance and distribution of goods from the train, according to the state-run China Daily.
The service is in response to increasing competition from other logistics firms serving routes from China to Europe. The train fits in with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision for “One Belt, One Road”, which has been referred to as the new Silk Road, which was once used to transport goods between Asia and Europe.
In November 2015 Shenzhen-based STO Express became the first major Chinese delivery firm to set up its own dedicated fleet of planes and trucks for deliveries across Europe. Three times a week it operates a cargo flight between Hong Kong and Prague to carry items to all countries in Europe, including the UK.
In an aggressive bid to corner the logistics market from competitors such as DHL and UPS, STO Express has said its fees are half those of its competitors and it aims to take a quarter of the market.
It is a market worth cornering. Chinese research firm iResearch statistics show that the country’s imports grew from
100 billion yuan (£11.7 billion) in 2014 to 150 billion yuan in 2015, and were forecast to hit 210 billion yuan in 2016.
Maggie Simpson, executive director of the Rail Freight Group, said of the new China-London rail service: “Although this is a first for the UK, similar services have been operating between China and mainland Europe for several years now. Deutsche Bahn has collaborated with partners since 2011 to operate weekly container trains connecting, among other cities, Duisburg and Hamburg to Wuhan, Chongqing and Harbin, and, as of mid-2016, Hamburg to Hefei, and there are other routes and providers too.
“The train provides an approximately three-week transit, which compares to six weeks by shipping. It is also about half the cost of air freight. So for certain products which are time sensitive and sufficiently high value it offers up a good opportunity.
“It won’t ever replace shipping – it could never move the volume – but it opens up a new route for UK exporters, which is likely to be even more valuable post-Brexit.”
Deutsche Bahn plans to step up cargo transport to China. This follows a record year in 2016, which saw more than 40,000 containers transported between the two countries.
“This is a good basis from which to increase the number of containers to about 100,000 by 2020,” said Deutsche Bahn board member Ronald Pofalla.
And China is making big investments in its rail infrastructure. This year will see 35 new railway projects as the country expands the network. Construction will begin on 2,100km of new single-track rail lines, 2,500km of double-track lines and 4,000km of electrified railways.