Eurasian rail: wider gates in the east, one door in the west

Eurasian rail had a strong first half of 2026, and almost none of the new traffic went where Europe’s strategy documents say it should. It went through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus, and it entered the European Union at one Polish border crossing. Kazakhstan is widening the eastern end of that route faster than anyone is building an alternative to its western end. That is the central fact for anyone planning around these corridors, and it cuts against the idea that sanctions and politics have been steadily draining the northern route.

The growth is running through the old route

The ERAI portal, which tracks rail container traffic across the broad-gauge network, reported that China–Europe–China rail container volume rose 28 per cent year on year in January–May 2026. Its update named the Central Eurasian Corridor as the route with the largest growth, at 27 per cent, and recorded a 47 per cent month-on-month jump there in May. ERAI does not define the corridor in that update, but its index covers the routes from the Dostyk and Altynkol crossings on the China–Kazakhstan border to Brest and Kaliningrad. In plain terms, this is the transit route through Russia and Belarus.

The two growth figures do not quite fit together, since a corridor growing at 27 per cent cannot have the highest relative growth within an aggregate growing at 28 per cent, unless rounding or a different base period is involved. The direction of travel is not in doubt, though: volumes on the route through Russia and Belarus rose sharply, not slightly.

Sea freight explains much of this. Bloomberg, as reported by The Astana Times in May, linked the shift to instability around the Strait of Hormuz. Talgat Aldybergenov, chief executive of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, said Chinese clients had become more interested in land routes "because of reliability and predictable delivery times". ERAI’s June update put the Shanghai–Rotterdam container rate at $4,342 per FEU on 18 June, after a sharp climb, and cited uncertainty over the Middle East conflict as one driver. Rail stayed dearer. ERAI put China–Europe rail at about $10,000 per FEU at the start of June, a rise of $300–600 on May. Rail is winning on predictability, not price.

Kazakhstan is widening the eastern gates

Kazakhstan’s transport ministry reported 18.7 million tonnes of rail freight between Kazakhstan and China in the first half of 2026, up 9 per cent. The split by crossing matters. Dostyk handled 10.6 million tonnes, up 15 per cent. Altynkol handled 8.1 million tonnes, up 2 per cent. Growth has gathered at Dostyk, where the second track on the Dostyk–Moiynty line opened in September 2025. President Tokayev called it the largest railway line built since independence and said it would increase freight volumes fivefold.

More is coming. In July, Vice Minister of Transport Zhanibek Taizhanov told The Times of Central Asia that the Moyynty–Kyzylzhar and Darbaza–Maktaaral lines should enter service by the end of 2026, and that Bakhty–Ayagoz, which adds a third rail crossing to China, should follow by the end of 2027. Bloomberg reported plans for $10 billion of transport investment through 2030, 900 kilometres of new line in 2026, and rail capacity between China and Europe rising from about 55 million to 100 million tonnes a year by 2030. That last figure is a target, and the reporting does not say how it is measured.

Most of this capacity feeds the same western exit. More track from the Chinese border does not create a route that avoids Russia and Belarus. It allows more trains to reach them. The exception is traffic sent across the Caspian, which has its own constraints, chiefly that far more containers travel west than come back east.

The Kyrgyz alternative is years away and small

The China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway is the one new line that would give China a southern rail exit through Central Asia without crossing Kazakhstan or Russia. It is now under construction. As of July, according to The Diplomat, the planned 530 km route included about 304 km through Kyrgyzstan’s Tien Shan, with 50 bridges and 29 tunnels totalling 104.83 km. Three of those tunnels are each over 12 km long. Around 5,000 people were working on the line, and officials aimed to have 5 per cent of it built by the end of 2026.

The financing is set. A joint project company is 51 per cent Chinese and 24.5 per cent each Kyrgyz and Uzbek. The Diplomat put the value at $4.7 billion for the Kyrgyz section, with China lending $2.35 billion. Kyrgyzstan will pay half of its share from the state budget and borrow the other half from China, a further $305 million over 25 years. In November 2025, the head of Uzbekistan’s railways said the line could be finished two years before the planned 2030 date. Even then, the feasibility study projects initial freight of 5–8 million tonnes a year, rising to 13–15 million tonnes over the long run. The line also involves a gauge change at Makmal, where standard gauge from China meets the 1,520 mm network. It is a real project, but a slow one. It will ease dependence on the northern route at the margin before the end of the decade, not replace it.

One crossing carries the corridor

At the western end, the risk is concentrated in one place. In September 2025, Poland closed its border with Belarus for 13 days, citing joint Russian–Belarusian military exercises and a drone incursion. Yicai reported that more than 130 China–Europe trains were stranded at Brest, and transit times from China to Małaszewicze rose from two to four days to 20 days. The border reopened on 25 September, but it took about a week to clear the backlog at Brest.

How much traffic this crossing carries depends on the source. UIRR, the European combined-transport association, set out the range at the time. Politico put the Małaszewicze share at 90 per cent, while ERAI data gave 84.7 per cent, or 280,200 TEU. Estimates of the value of overland China–EU trade ranged from €25.07 billion (Upply) to €56.7 billion (Chinese sources). The gap reflects different measures: trains against containers, and declared value against estimated value. Even the lower share means that most of the route passes through a single pair of border stations that one EU government has already shown it will close.

What the numbers do not show

They do not show that the northern route has become safer. Growth in 2026 is a response to trouble at sea, not a vote of confidence in overland politics. They do not show how much of the traffic is transit to Europe rather than trade with Russia or Central Asia. The ERAI aggregate combines both directions, and Kazakhstan’s tonnage figures mix bulk exports with containers. They also do not show whether the Chinese-border capacity now being built will be matched by capacity at Brest and Małaszewicze. No source we reviewed gives a figure for that.

What to watch

Three things will show whether this pattern holds. First, whether rail volumes stay high once sea rates fall back. If they do, the shift is structural. If they do not, 2026 was a detour. Second, whether Poland treats the Belarus crossings as a lever again. The 2025 closure showed that Warsaw is prepared to impose the cost, and that most of it falls on shippers using the route. Third, whether the Kyrgyz tunnelling keeps to schedule through 2027. That is the earliest point at which a southern exit becomes a planning assumption rather than a hope. Until then, Kazakhstan’s investment is making the route wider without making it any less dependent on Russia, Belarus and one Polish border crossing.

Sources

• ERAI — Eurasian logistics market update, June 2026, issue 33 (18 June 2026)
• Qazinform — Kazakhstan-China freight traffic rises to 18.7mln tons in first half of 2026 (16 July 2026)
• The Astana Times — Bloomberg: Middle East tensions drive China-Europe trade through Kazakhstan (May 2026)
• The Astana Times — Kazakhstan launches second line of Dostyk-Moiynty railway (30 September 2025)
• The Times of Central Asia — Interview: How Kazakhstan plans to finance its next railway expansion (23 July 2026)
• The Diplomat — Progress on the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway, some challenges remain (17 July 2026)
• Yicai Global — China-Europe freight trains still stuck in bottleneck after Poland reopens border with Belarus (30 September 2025)
• UIRR — Data of the week: How important is Małaszewicze for China-Europe trade? (24 September 2025)