The new railway line connecting Istanbul and the Chinese port of Lianyungang has now been established as a regular service. On 28 November a block train departed from the Kazakh-Chinese logistics terminal in the east-Chinese port. The train will proceed along the Middle Corridor through China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia before it enters Turkey, eighteen to twenty days later.

The service was sent out as a trial service in westbound direction in June this year. The service has now become regular, with departures from the port of Lianyungang on the 8th, 18th and 28th of every month. This frequency may be increased in the near future.

Regular service

Regular container trains from China to Turkey will contribute to the expansion of containerised services, as well as increasing the volume of freight traffic on the Middle Corridor, commented the overarching organisation Middle Corridor.

The Middle Corridor was launched to provide an alternative to the northern routes of the New Silk Road, which lead cargo through Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, to enter Europe at the border with Poland. The corridor runs from China to Turkey, which provides another gateway to Europe via the Black Sea. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway was opened in October last year, providing the missing link on the route.