Port of Hamburg announced that the first container block train on the new service between Hamburg and China called ‘Shanghai-Express’ has reached the DUSS terminal in Hamburg on October 25 further improving the "already fine" of rail offerings between Hamburg and China.

Commencing in Hamburg’s partner city Shanghai, the new service took the train via Alashankou in Kazakhstan, Belarus, Małaszewicze in Poland, and finally to Hamburg, the European port added.

Hamburg-China trade boost

Peter Tschentscher, Hamburg’s First Mayor, said the new container train service as further boosting trade relations between Hamburg and China.

“I am delighted that with the ‘Shanghai-Express’, a direct freight train service between Hamburg and Shanghai has now commenced. Hamburg and Shanghai have been partner cities for 35 years ... this new container train service brings Hamburg and Shanghai closer together. It is an important addition to German-Chinese trade routes,” Tschentscher said.

The ‘Shanghai-Express’ departed on its first run with fifty 40-ft containers loaded with clothing, shoes, glassware, automotive parts, photovoltaic equipment, cooking utensils, furniture, lamps and other consumer goods.

TONG Jisheng, chairman of the operator, expects to offer the train’s first return run from Hamburg to Shanghai within about one month. 

In regular operation, initially one train per week will leave for Hamburg, yet in the long term, frequency will be boosted to between two and three runs per week. According to the operator, departures until the end of this year are already fully booked.

Around 2.4 million standard containers, or TEUs, are handled annually in the China trade in the Port of Hamburg. Almost every third container crossing its quay walls is bound for China or originates there. 

Logistics providers are turning to rail as an alternative to sea and air transport which are both currently facing congestion.

It said last year, over 230 weekly services were marketed between Hamburg and 20 destinations in the People’s Republic. Further connections from Shijiazhuang in the province of Hebei and Wuhei in Gansu have been added this year.

The port noted that in 2020, around 107,000 TEU were transported between China and Hamburg by rail.