Rail Freight

China-Europe rail sits between ocean and air on both cost and transit, which makes it the mode most sellers forget to price. Roughly half the transit of sea, a fraction of the cost of air, and it avoids the maritime chokepoints entirely. That last part has mattered more in the past two years than in the decade before it. The trade-offs are real: capacity is thinner, some commodities are restricted, and border handovers add variability that ocean does not have. Departures from Zhengzhou, Xi'an and Chengdu behave differently, and the terminal you route through changes your reliability. This tag covers service launches and suspensions, transit performance, capacity, and the politics that decide whether the corridor stays viable. If you have never quoted rail on a lane, you may be leaving weeks and money on the table.