Rail China - Europe - did anyone ask Russia?

The names of several articles about container train network built in China caught my attention. Interestingly several articles are talking about linking China to Europe by cargo rail. While I am fully aware of the huge effort by the Chinese government to improve and often build from scratch a modern and powerful infrastructure in that country, I think adding a European angle to this development is a bit of a stretch. This huge bit is called Russia.

I think if Jay Leno would ask happy and tanned residents of Los Angeles during his Jay Walking - what countries separate China from Europe - the answers would have been pretty entertaining, like Australia or Canada. Joking aside if you look at the map it is pretty obvious that you cannot really expect to jump from China to Europe by rail without going through Russia and/or Kazakhstan. One of the most respected publications in Russia, Kommersant, interviewed foreign businessmen about their experience of doing business in Russia. In his interview Bernard Meunieur, General Director of Nestle Food Russia, explained that "problems we encounter in Russia are typical not only for our industry, have to do with two main aspects - human resources and infrastructure of the entire country. All of the ports, airport, customs offices and especially logistics and transportation are overloaded and underinvested. This area did not see proper capitalization for 30 years while the tariffs are going up."

So I am wondering if the China -Europe rail connection is someone’s wishful thinking or was it just a good name for an article?

To be fair, I think that creating such a direct channel of cargo rail connection between China and Europe is going to be a modern day Silk Path. But I am very skeptical about such prospects under the current political and economic circumstances. Especially when someone like Russia has to be in the middle.

Trivia question - what rail gauge is used in China vs. one in Russia?

Famously when Russians were planning their rail road system in the 19th century, they made an intentional decision to build railroads with gauge some 3 inches wider than the standard one used in Europe (I won’t go into real reasons here ).