Diamond Silk Road: Antwerp - Shanghai passenger train

[itfcfan]

One for the dreamers (myself included)!

Having said that, if the costs of the Moscow-Beijing services (Trans-Mongolian and Trans-Manchurian) can be subsidised by China and Russia for decades for the sake of diplomacy, then who knows what's possible. Increasing the route length by a modest amount now China has a bit more money sloshing around to pay for a higher prestige route might not be impossible?!

Silk Road passenger train planned between Antwerp, Shanghai
ANTWERP, Belgium -- Several organizations and institutions on Thursday signed an ambitious agreement to jointly work to introduce train services between this Belgian port and the Chinese port of Shanghai.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Antwerp among the World Free & Special Economic Zones Federation, Brussels-based magazine Diplomatic World and the Antwerp-based non-profit European Federation of Traditional Chinese Culture (EFTCC).

The program, called Diamond Silk Road, aims to connect Antwerp and Shanghai by a passenger train that will run through 10 other cities including Brussels, Moscow, Ulan Bator and Beijing, thus forming the world's largest space for free trade and manufacturing.

Currently, there is only freight rail service network linking China and Europe.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201809/28/WS5bada0aba310eff303280075.html

 

[class387]

One through car wouldn't be impossible to be honest. It could be coupled to a Z-Train to Beijing, the Trans-Mongolian to Moscow and then the Paris-Moscow express into western Europe.

 

[MarcVD]

Strange... Today, freight trains take between 3 and 4 weeks to link Europe with China. Passengers only need about 10 days. Even if the freight trains are seriously accelerated, dividing the time they by two seens unrealistic. So what's the point ?

 

[farci]

Strange... Today, freight trains take between 3 and 4 weeks to link Europe with China. Passengers only need about 10 days. Even if the freight trains are seriously accelerated, dividing the time they by two seens unrealistic. So what's the point ?

Surely passengers would stop off en route, otherwise no Silk Rd experience. However they would rely on a regular service to complete the journey. I’ll bet Joanna Lumley broke her journey

 

[itfcfan]

Strange... Today, freight trains take between 3 and 4 weeks to link Europe with China. Passengers only need about 10 days. Even if the freight trains are seriously accelerated, dividing the time they by two seens unrealistic. So what's the point ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38654176
This BBC News article from the first Yiwu-London service states 15 days as the duration. However, freight trains generally suffer slower progress than passenger trains. Customs clearance is far more complex for goods than passengers. The weight of the freight train limits the speed it can travel and when you have to cover thousands of miles it all adds up.

Adding up the duration of existing (non high speed) passenger trains from Antwerp to Beijing I get a figure of 158 hours (6.5 days). So I think such a service is possible from a duration perspective. Some people take the existing Trans-Siberian (and related) services end-to-end for a similar duration, but many more stop off along the way.

 

[Groningen]

How much more freight; so much longer does it take to change wheels. Train departure is such that they are able to do that at the maximum length of the train; whether it is 1 wagon or 200. There will be only 1 departure time!