The first freight train to run from Britain to China departed on Monday, carrying goods like vitamins, baby products and pharmaceuticals.
The bright red train left a depot at Stanford-Le-Hope in Essex for barking in East London.
It will pass through the channel tunnel into France and on to Belgium, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan before ending up in Yiwu in China.
The journey from Eastern England to Eastern China will take three weeks.
Run by Yiwu Timex Industrial Investment, the service makes London the 15th European City to have a direct rail link with China.
