China State Railway Group said the national railway network transported 1.05 billion tonnes of coal in the first half of the year, including 701 million tonnes of coal for power generation, with coal inventories at power plants supplied by the railway remaining at elevated levels.

To support the transport of coal and other essential goods, the railway operator continued to run dedicated bulk cargo trains with fixed origin-destination pairs, schedules and routes, providing stable point-to-point delivery services for key commodities.

Overall, the national railway network handled 2.02 billion tonnes of freight in the first half, up 1.8% year on year.

Beyond coal, the railway launched "passenger-train-style" import fertilizer services, cutting intermediate steps and reducing delivery time from port unloading to arrival at Yunnan factories to just three days, compared with traditional fragmented shipping. The service aims to build a stable, efficient and low-cost fertilizer corridor in southwest China. The railway shipped 28.42 million tonnes of fertilizer in the first half, up 8.6% year on year.

The railway also introduced a "single-invoice" rail-sea intermodal product on its platform, combining dedicated trains with scheduled shipping services to link rail trunk lines with coastal and river ports, embedding deeper into supply chains. Rail-sea intermodal volumes reached 912,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the first half, up 11% year on year, with the "single-invoice" product receiving 59,000 TEUs in bookings.