The first China-United Kingdom freight train, East Wind, completed its more than 12,000 kilometre journey in the eastern Chinese city of Yiwu on Saturday, making it the second-longest route in the world. The link is part of Beijing’s attempts to create a contemporary “Silk Road”. The country hopes to improve trade ties with western Europe with this route, AFP reported.

The locomotive left London on April 10, traversed through France, Belgium Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan, before reaching its destination. It took two days longer than its estimated 18-day trip. The train was carrying cargo including whisky, baby milk, pharmaceuticals and machinery to be delivered to the city in Zhejiang province, which is a major wholesale centre for small consumer goods.

Officials said the journey takes 30 days lesser than it would have via sea. But the state authorities said the train was carrying only 88 shipping containers on its maiden journey, a fraction compared to the 10,000 to 20,000 containers cargo ships are capable of carrying.

The route is longer than the famous Trans-Siberian railway in Russia but about 1,000 kilometres shorter than the China-Madrid link, which opened in 2014.

Officials are yet to specify if the route is more economically viable than the one via sea. “It is hard to say at this stage what the economic return will be, as the economic benefits will come over a long time,” He Tianjie of Oxford Economics Hong Kong told AFP. But the flexibility of a train route with scope for multiple stops and the fact that trains are less susceptible to extreme weather conditions is an added advantage, He said.

China has a regular direct freight train service to Germany too.