The device is manufactured, flashed, and packaged in China, and normally shipped by sea. But now demand has gone up, or production has been slightly delayed, and we need to get devices to customers. Maybe we will run out of stock in 1-2 weeks. We can't really (only) load a container ship and not be able to get devices to customers for a couple of weeks when demand is high. The logistics team then tries to ship limited quantities by air and/or train to bridge the gap until the next container ship arrives.
Hence my (very limited) experience tells me there is definitely a market for something like trains with time and cost in between air freight and container ships.
From this article http://richardtorian.blogspot.com/2012/01/cost-per-ton-mile-..., you can cut the shipping costs by train to a pretty low level.
The gist of all that german garble is that it is about twice the speed of sea freight, measured "door to door", while costing only half as much as air freight, but twice that of sea freight. co² emission is calculated as half of that of sea freight, and 25 times less than air freight. In 2016 they shipped somewhat over 40.000 containers in about 400 trains, which carry about 50 containers per train.
The NYT covered this in 2013 with an interactive feature: http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/07/21/silk-road/ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/business/global/hauling-ne...
hth
almost forgotten: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Eurasia_Logistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe_Rail...
I guess half as much as airfreight means that it's still considerably more expensive than shipping. But for 14 days vs 30-45 days it might well be worth it.
Low value items and very heavy items are currently not viable via airfreight, that's probably where trains can be profitable. If you produce clothes your only options are to either do so in Europe (there's a lot of production in Turkey) and have it close by, or produce in Asia and wait 40 days for every order. Cutting that time for a premium could make a lot of economic sense.
If you suddenly find a particular style/colour of item is popular and selling out it might make sense to get more items shipped via train and have them arrive in 2 weeks.
If you have to put it on a boat and wait 6 weeks you may have missed your chance to sell that item (e.g., people are moving on from summer to autumn clothing, etc.).
Could also be a way to spur growth too. If you need to spend money on something, infrastructure seems like a decent choice.