[3] It is one of several long-distance freight railway routes from China to Europe on the "New Eurasian Land Bridge" and part of establishing a modern-day Silk Road.

From Yiwu, a trading center 300 km south of Shanghai, the route passes through 9 countries: China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium, France, UK.

While the Eurasian Land Bridge was completed in 1990, when the railway systems of China and Kazakhstan connected at Alataw Pass, it was first in October 2008 that the first Trans-Eurasia Logistics train reached Hamburg from Xiangtan officially traveling along the entire north route.

It is expected that the importance of the railway trade routes will increase with time, as anticipated cumulative investment over an indefinite timescale for the One Belt, One Road policy is estimated to be between 4 and 8 trillion US dollars.

[10] Both governments hope that it will help strengthen trade between the two countries, but the service was only scheduled to run once a week for a few months in order to assess demand.

The export flow will most likely consist of British designer goods, providing an opportunity for companies to expand to Chinese markets.

[12] Despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine leading to increased tensions between Russia and the United Kingdom as well as the European Union, which the railway line runs through, services on the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe Railway have been able to continue as the Russian authorities have permitted EU-China rail freight to operate without additional restrictions [13], and so trains have still been able to operate on the Yiwu-London route through into 2024 and beyond.