A fully loaded "Jinan Budapest" China Europe freight train with household appliances and high-end mechanical equipment departed on time from the Dongjia Town Railway Freight Center in Jinan. In 12 days, this batch of goods will arrive in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, and the entire journey will take 30% less time than the regular China Europe freight train. This is a microcosm of the successful start of the first quarter of the Shandong China Europe freight train - from January to March this year, the Shandong China Europe freight train operated 699 trains, a year-on-year increase of 28%. Against the backdrop of intensified geopolitical competition and fluctuating sea and air freight rates, this stable Eurasian land route is becoming the preferred choice for more and more foreign trade enterprises.

Jiqing dual core drive aggregation efficiency

Since the approval of the Jinan Qingdao hub for the China Europe freight train in January 2025, the synergistic effects between the two cities have continued to be released. The Jinan hub line is comprehensive and has sufficient transportation capacity, covering major stations in Europe and Central Asia, radiating along Huangjiu City and Weifang, and attracting goods from surrounding provinces to gather; The Qingdao hub mainly serves local leading enterprises in home appliances, tires, and other industries. At the same time, it radiates to Japan and South Korea with convenient multimodal transportation conditions, supporting the operation of high-quality routes such as the "SCO Express Line" and the "Japan Korea Land Sea Express Line". The two places have established a collaborative mechanism of "mutual recognition of schedules and sharing of cabin space" to facilitate coordination of transportation capacity. As of February 2026, Jiqing Collaborative has provided services to customers with a total of 28000 TEUs. The full timetable of the China Europe freight train allows for priority replacement and on-time operation in case of port congestion, significantly enhancing its attractiveness to high-value and high time sensitive goods.

Building Overseas Networks in Four Overseas Cities

The most difficult problem to solve in train logistics is not mainline transportation, but the connection between the front and rear ends and the mainline. Especially in the overseas transportation process, the last kilometer from the "station" to the "door" is more likely to become a bottleneck that affects the smooth flow of the entire journey. Shandong has taken the lead in completing the construction of an overseas transportation system nationwide, setting up four overseas gathering centers in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Ingia, Serbia, Moscow, Russia, and Vientiane, Laos, and simultaneously establishing overseas institutions to be responsible for specific operations. These overseas branches can deeply intervene in the entire overseas transportation chain, attract return goods, and promote train services locally. Previously, overseas transportation plans and goods control could only be remotely connected domestically, with a long communication chain and slow response. Now, staff can arrive on-site and solve problems directly. As of February 2026, four overseas assembly centers have provided a total of 94000 TEUs of comprehensive logistics services. Keywords: Land Port News Network, China Europe Railway Express

Exploring the diverse value of the business model in Banjia

The Shandong China Europe freight train is transitioning from simple station to station mainline transportation to diversified value mining around the train industry chain. In addition to coordinating domestic and foreign logistics resources such as trailers, stations, and distribution, characteristic trains have become an important direction for extending value-added services. The product matrix of supply chain special trains, cold chain trains, market procurement trains, cross-border e-commerce trains, etc. continues to enrich, with a total of 867 trains in operation as of February 2026. In Linyi, through the "integration of transportation and trade" business, the train imports Kazakh feed wheat flour and Russian timber, providing stable raw material supply for local feed processing and board enterprises. This year, we plan to pilot "order agriculture" with grain enterprises in Kazakhstan, controlling the entire chain from grain planting, processing to transportation and sales. The Qingdao hub park also plans to innovate the "train+bonded" and "bonded+transit" businesses based on bonded warehouses. Imported goods will be temporarily stored in the bonded warehouse without paying taxes, and will be declared at the time of actual sales, effectively alleviating the pressure of enterprise capital occupation.Editor/Gao Xue