Amidst the sound of the steam whistle, the starting point of the ancient Silk Road is being redefined. Xi'an, an inland city that does not border or rely on the sea, now relies on the steel camel caravan of the China Europe freight train to continuously send Chinese made household appliances and components to the Eurasian continent, and also bring high-quality materials from Central Asia back to China. Thirty thousand buses are speeding by, and a logistics artery connecting the east and west has already taken shape.

At the Xi'an assembly center of the China Europe freight train, the sound of sirens echoed on site as trains loaded with car parts, home appliances, and other goods sailed overseas; Various materials such as rapeseed oil and flour from Central Asia are also continuously transported into the country through this channel. At present, the China Europe freight train (Xi'an) has opened 18 international trunk lines and 26 "+Western Europe" routes, covering the Eurasian continent and major domestic sources of goods. Xi'an has become the first city in China to have accumulated over 30000 train services, and a modern logistics network that combines inland distribution, sea land linkage, and global distribution functions is accelerating its formation.

Smooth freight transportation between Europe and Asia

The intelligent home appliance production workshop of Shaanxi Konka, located about one kilometer away from the assembly center, has a high-speed intelligent production line. The refrigerator, washing machine, and dishwasher are assembled and directly loaded onto the truck, which can be shipped to Central Asia and Europe on the same day. Chen Zhao, the general manager of the enterprise, introduced that the goods can arrive in Russia in as fast as 7 days, achieving low-cost and high-efficiency export. As of the end of July 2026, the total number of white goods exported through train services has reached 286000 units.

Model Innovation Agglomeration Industry

Zhang Bingxin, Deputy General Manager of Xi'an Free Trade Port Construction and Operation Co., Ltd., introduced that the local innovation has launched export models such as train+cross-border e-commerce and train+automotive parts, relying on the advantages of train to drive industrial agglomeration and attract a large number of manufacturing, trade, and e-commerce enterprises to settle in Shaanxi for development. Keywords: China Europe freight train, Xi'an, cross-border logistics

Hub linkage improves efficiency and reduces time

In June 2025, the China Xi'an Kazakhstan Terminal located in Almaty was officially put into operation, building a dual hub pattern with the local Kazakhstan terminal in Xi'an, upgrading the transportation mode from point-to-point to hub to hub. The dual terminal mode has reduced the transportation time from Xi'an to Almaty from 15 days to 4-7 days, shortened the time required for port replacement from a few days to a few hours, and increased the business scale of enterprises by 2-3 times. Relying on the dividend of the the Belt and Road construction, the train, with its prominent advantages of frequent and stable shifts, not only helps local enterprises expand their overseas development territory, but also continues to attract high-quality goods from the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta to gather in Xi'an, and continues to consolidate the position of inland opening up hub.Editor/Gong Ziwei