On June 17, 2026, accompanied by a long whistle, a railway cold chain special train loaded with 50 tons of high-quality Luochuan apples slowly departed from the Huangling East Station freight yard. This train has sped all the way to South Asia, marking the official departure of the first cold chain special railway for agricultural products export in Shaanxi Province, adding new momentum to the connection of characteristic agriculture in Yan'an old area with the the Belt and Road and rural revitalization.

Cracking the problem of cross-border transportation preservation

Luochuan County is located in the southern part of Yan'an City, with an average altitude of over one kilometer. It has a large temperature difference between day and night and abundant sunshine, and is recognized as the world's golden apple eugenics belt. For a long time, cross-border transportation for preservation, high logistics costs, and a single export channel have been the main bottlenecks restricting the large-scale export of Luochuan apples.

Previously, local enterprises relied entirely on road transportation for exporting apples to Nepal, covering a total distance of nearly 3800 kilometers. The road conditions were complex and time-consuming, resulting in high shipping costs and severe damage to the fruits due to collisions. To address this pain point, Xi'an Railway Bureau has conducted multiple in-depth investigations into enterprises and tailored this integrated cold chain transportation solution to meet the special needs of high-altitude and long-distance cross-border transportation.

Create a fully temperature controlled intermodal transportation mode

This special train adopts a door-to-door multimodal transport mode of front-end warehouse railway transportation port distribution. China Railway Special Cargo has deployed an advanced 40 foot external generator unit refrigerated container. This backpack style refrigerated container comes with an independent power supply and temperature control system, and can operate stably for 150 hours in extreme environments ranging from -40 ℃ to+50 ℃.

When apples are packed in the warehouse, the boxes have been pre cooled to minus two degrees Celsius to zero degrees Celsius, and are equipped with a Beidou positioning and remote monitoring system. The staff can monitor the temperature and position inside the box in real time to ensure that the entire transportation process is not cold and continuous. After the goods arrive at Xigaze West Station in Xizang, they only need to be transferred to Jilong Port by short distance bus. The whole box can not be changed out of the box, which minimizes the loss of fruits.

Promote the fruit industry in old areas to go global

Stable railway transportation not only ensures the quality of fresh fruits, but also directly reduces enterprise costs. According to Wang Bin, the general manager of Luochuan Youluo Organic Fruit Industry Co., Ltd., the logistics cost of railway cold chain trains has decreased by 2% compared to traditional road transportation, and the transportation time is more stable and controllable. The successful opening of this channel is a model of road land cooperation and cooperation between enterprises. It not only lays a solid foundation for Luochuan apples to deeply cultivate the South Asian market, but also provides a replicable demonstration model of railway cold chain and railway public intermodal transportation for Chinese agricultural products to go global. Keywords: the Belt and Road News, Luochuan Apple, Nepal

With the successful entry of Luochuan Apple into the Australian Supermarket in May 2026 and the debut of this special train, the opening up of Luochuan Fruit Industry is accelerating its expansion under the the Belt and Road Initiative.Editor/Gong Ziwei