(CNN) -- In the smoggy cradle of China's industrial heartland, a heaving freight train gets set to depart along a modern incarnation of the legendary Silk Road trading route. This historic passageway was once worn into a dense chain of dusty trails by caravans of horses and camels carrying merchants and their many wares between continental Asia and Europe. Today it takes the form of a series of transnational rail tracks transporting the latest in electronic products and computer parts. Starting in the bustling mega city of Chongqing, southwest China, the 11,179-kilometer (6,946-mile) network stretches across six countries and vast unpopulated expanses all the way to Duisburg, Germany.
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A vast rail network links Chongqing in China to Duisburg in Germany
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The network has echoes of the famous Silk Road trading route
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The railway goes through China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany
For many companies with factories in fast-growing Chongqing, transferring items via rail to markets in @placeholder can be easier and quicker than sea freight from one of China's coastal ports.