The first rail shuttle between China and the Netherlands has been launched. The service was launched by the Chinese rail operator CDiRS in June, and now the Chengdu-Tilburg-Rotterdam-Express is in full operation, the Port of Rotterdam Authority said in a media release. At the moment, this is a weekly service, however, the ambition of CDiRS and its Dutch partner, RailPortbrabant, part of the GVT Group, is to run the service five times a week as of late next year.
The Chengdu-Tilburg-Rotterdam-Express reaches its destination 'door-to-door' in 15 days and crosses Kazakhstan and Moscow. Chengdu offers railway connections to Chinese cities, such as Shanghai, Ningbo, Wuhan, Yiwu, Xiamen, Shenzhen, Nanning and Kunming, as well as to Vietnam and South Korea. "Cargo from China is often shipped by sea, short sea, from the port of Rotterdam to the UK, Scandinavia and Portugal," said Roland Verbraak, General Manager at GVT Group of Logistics.