First Wide-Gauge Direct Block Train from China's Erenhot to Mongolia Launched, with Annual Contracted Volume of 280,000 Tons

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 10, the first wide-gauge direct block train from the Erenhot railway port in Inner Mongolia, China, to Bayan Station in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, was officially launched. The train is loaded with semi-coke, uses Mongolian wide-gauge rolling stock and a "pendulum-style" international logistics organization model, and has an annual contracted volume of 280,000 tons, mainly intended to guarantee fuel demand for winter heating in Ulaanbaatar. This launch also marks the official implementation of a logistics innovation product in the Erenhot area of the China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone.

The block train uses empty cars returning from the Mongolian direction to implement "loaded in, loaded out" transport organization. Semi-coke is loaded directly into Mongolian wide-gauge freight cars at the Erenhot railway port, exits through the China-Mongolia railway port, and is then transported to Bayan Station, eliminating the secondary transloading step within Mongolian territory in the original transport process. The returning cars match the loading demand for outbound goods, reducing idle empty-car resources and repeated loading and unloading of goods. Direct transport shortens the operating time for transloading goods at overseas stations and related logistics costs.

The Erenhot railway port has railway facilities with parallel wide-gauge and standard-gauge tracks, is capable of directly receiving and dispatching Mongolian wide-gauge trains, and is also the only entry and exit port for the "middle corridor" of China-Europe freight trains. The newly added wide-gauge direct transport uses existing port railway facilities to organize loading and international intermodal transport, with the destination station being Bayan Station in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Before the block train was launched, Erenhot Station and Mongolian railway authorities relied on the China-Mongolia border railway "daily dialogue, monthly meeting" cooperation mechanism to coordinate cross-border train operation plans, rolling stock connections, and international intermodal transport organization. The station established a working mechanism for optimizing loading plans, matching rolling stock, and coordinating transport, and carried out coordinated operations with customs, border inspection, and other port joint inspection departments to ensure cross-border cargo loading and train departure.

On April 5, 2026, the State Council issued the Overall Plan for the China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone, explicitly supporting the addition of wide-gauge direct block trains from Erenhot to Ulaanbaatar and expanding the wide-gauge loading function of the Erenhot railway port. The plan also proposed developing customized international block trains, improving service guarantee mechanisms for cross-border block trains, and promoting transport organization methods such as "single-document" and "single-container" systems for multimodal transport.

The China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone was officially unveiled on April 11, among which the Erenhot area has a planned area of 18.35 square kilometers and focuses on developing international trade, international logistics, and cross-border transport services. The launch of this wide-gauge block train corresponds to the cross-border railway transport task determined in the overall plan and is operated using a semi-coke cargo source organization that has already formed an annual contracted volume.