New Eurasian Land Bridge

File:新欧亚大陆桥〇公里处雕塑.jpg

0-km mark of the New Eurasian Land Bridge in the Port of Lianyungang

Terminus of the Lanxin railway at Alataw Pass, where the Chinese rail system connects with that of Kazakhstan at Dostyk. From Kazakhstan, rail links extend into Russia.

Chinese Railway T165 train near Weinan Station

The New Eurasian Land Bridge, also called the Second or New Eurasian Continental Bridge, is the southern counterpart to the Eurasian Land Bridge and runs through China and Central Asia with possible plans for expansion into South and West Asia. The Eurasian Land Bridge system is important as an overland rail link between China and Europe, with transit between the two via Central Asia and Russia.

Routes

See also: Eurasia Continental Bridge corridor

Due to a break-of-gauge between standard gauge used in China and the Russian gauge used in the former Soviet Union countries, containers must be physically transferred from Chinese to Kazakh railway cars at Dostyk on the Chinese-Kazakh border and again at the Belarus-Poland border where the standard gauge used in western Europe begins. This is done with truck-mounted cranes. Chinese media often states that the New Eurasian Land/Continental Bridge extends from Lianyungang to Rotterdam, a distance of 11,870 kilometres (7,380 mi). The exact route used to connect the two cities is not always specified in Chinese media reports, but appears to usually refer to the route which passes through Kazakhstan.

All rail freight from China across the Eurasian Land Bridge must pass north of the Caspian Sea through Russia at some point. A proposed alternative would pass through Turkey and Bulgaria, but any route south of the Caspian Sea must pass through Iran.

Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev urged Eurasian and Chinese leaders at the 18th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to construct the Eurasian high-speed railway (EHSRW) following a Beijing-Astana-Moscow-Berlin.

On 7 November 2019 the first Chinese freight train through the Marmaray tunnel to Europe ran, from Xi’an using a Chinese locomotive. This demonstrated a China to Turkey transportation time reduced from a month to 12 days, and is part of the Iron Silk Road.

See also

• Trans-Eurasia Logistics
• Yiwu–Madrid railway line
• Yiwu–London railway line
• North–South Transport Corridor
• Eurasian Land Bridge

External links and further reading

• Multimedia The New York Times