On Friday afternoon, China Railway Express' first block train of international postal parcels departed from Chongqing to Lithuania to help ease the transportation pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic as most airlines cut down their international flights.

A block train is a freight train that runs as a unit from the loading point to the unloading point without intermediate stops. This train will arrive in Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania, in 10 days via China Railway Express (Chongqing), or Yuxinou (Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe) International Railway.

The nearly 11,180-kilometer link begins in Chongqing, crosses the border into Kazakhstan at Alashankou, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and passes through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Poland before reaching its terminus in Duisburg, Germany.

It cuts what was a five-week shipping period to about two weeks, and costs 80 percent less than airfreight.

The "China Post" CR Express block train has a total of 44 containers with about 300 tons of postal parcels, including 42 containers of international postal parcels from Beijing, Guangdong, Hunan and Chongqing, and two of medical supplies purchased by the Lithuanian government.

With the spread of COVID-19 pandemic around the globe, most international airlines have gradually grounded their passenger routes in China, blocking a large amount of international postal parcels.

China Post decided to start an emergency program to send out those parcels via Youxinou International Railway instead of mailing them by air from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

As the only municipality in western China, Chongqing is at the intersection of the Belt and Road Initiative's trade route and the Yangtze River Economic Zone.

Thanks to its comprehensive transportation system spanning air, water and land, the city is also one of the nine key logistics centers in the country.

Yuxinou International Railway plans to dispatch one or two block trains of international postal parcels every week.