The morning sun shines on the Malaszewicz station in eastern Poland, with container trucks orderly entering and exiting, and huge lifting equipment shuttling back and forth between the yards. Containers from China undergo a crucial 'turnaround' here - unloading from wide gauge trains, reloading onto European standard narrow gauge trains, and then heading to local cities in Germany, the Netherlands, or Poland.

This is an important gateway for China Europe freight trains to enter the European Union. At the container yard station of Inbap Group, dispatcher Katzper Shimanski is closely monitoring the operational process in front of him. With 8 years of industry experience, he has personally experienced the entire process of the station from construction to operation. In just six months, this new station has shown amazing vitality, handling nearly 200 containers per day, the vast majority of which come from China. With the surge in business volume, the team continues to expand, new equipment is in place one after another, and everything runs efficiently and transparently. In Shimanski's view, this cross-border collaboration not only brings visible flow of goods, but also stable employment and business opportunities, benefiting every local employee and partner.

Hub Rise

Traveling about 330 kilometers west from the China Poland border, the central Polish city of Łó d ź is rising as an important logistics hub in Central and Eastern Europe due to its unique geographical location. At 9 o'clock in the morning, the highway leading to Łó d ź was flooded with trucks loaded with goods. More than a decade ago, when the first freight train departing from Chengdu traveled thousands of miles to reach here, the route was still immature. In order to ensure the smooth entry of this train during the Christmas period, Philip Grelak, the head of logistics company Hartrans, and his colleagues gave up holiday gatherings and waited all night at the border crossing. At that time, from document preparation to clearance coordination, every step required feeling the stones and crossing the river. Nowadays, Greelak's company has established stable business connections with multiple Chinese cities such as Chengdu, Xi'an, Chongqing, and Guangzhou. The once cumbersome customs clearance process is becoming increasingly standardized, and the safety and infrastructure level of transportation have significantly improved. Grelak sighed that railways have become the core driving force behind the company's growth over the past decade, especially in transporting high-value and time sensitive goods, and their advantages are irreplaceable. Adam Sobchinski, the head of iHub, the operator of the station, also pointed out that railways provide faster and more stable alternative solutions when global shipping is disrupted.

Goods Connect the World

With the rotation of the wheels, the "Made in China" produced by China Europe Railway Express is quietly upgrading. Pavel Moscara, General Manager of Ria Future Logistics Company in Poland, recalled that in the early days, the trains mainly transported OEM produced computers and electronic products. Nowadays, cross-border e-commerce packages, new energy vehicles, and Chinese domestic brand products are becoming new protagonists. Jiang Bohui, Deputy General Manager of Asia Europe Interconnection Holdings Poland, has a deep understanding of this. In the business she handled, she mainly focused on clothing, toys, and low-priced household items in the early years, but in the past three years, she has clearly shifted to high value-added products such as photovoltaic energy storage equipment, high-end electronic components, and automotive parts. Currently, these types of goods account for more than 60% of the company's total shipments. According to data from China Railway Group Corporation, since the introduction of the unified brand of China Europe freight trains in June 2016, the annual operating volume has increased by 10.8 times over the past decade, with an average annual growth rate of 31.5%, reaching 236 cities in 26 European countries. In the past decade, the transportation category has expanded to 53 categories and over 50000 types of goods, with a transportation value of up to 67.7 billion US dollars in 2025 alone.

Resilient Future

Against the backdrop of rising geopolitical uncertainty and frequent disruptions to global trade, this Eurasian railway line is demonstrating strong vitality. It is not only a logistics channel, but also a key tool for enhancing supply chain resilience. Maugozata Begaillo, the Container Refilling Business Manager of BNP Paribas Group, believes that the China Europe freight train is building a new cooperation platform for Chinese and European enterprises, especially in the fields of green logistics, digitalization of transportation processes, and industrial project development, with broad prospects for cooperation between the two sides. The stories of Polish logistics practitioners, from the dressing up site in Malaszewicz to the busy hub in Łó d ź, are the best footnote to the ten-year interconnectivity and shared opportunities of China Europe freight trains.Editor/Yang Meiling