David Fickling, Columnist

Xi's Deserted Desert Road

The world's biggest container ship can transport more than the Trans-Siberian Railway.

July 19, 2016 at 6:05 AM UTC

David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

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Think China's plans to build railways across central Asia will be a boon for global trade? Consider this: The mighty Trans-Siberian Railway carried about as much east-west container traffic last year as you'd get on a single boat.

Transit container traffic over the network amounted to 109,000 20-foot equivalent units in 2015, its owner Russian Railways said last month. The world's biggest container ship, the MSC Oscar, can carry 19,224 TEUs and takes about two months to make the return trip from Asia to Europe.1468907692520