A ship, which is loaded with nearly 3,000 metric tons of imported grains, docks at a port in Dazhou, Sichuan province on Sept 23.

A ship loaded with nearly 3,000 metric tons of imported grains arrived in Dazhou, Sichuan province on Sept 23 after departing from Zhoushan, East China's Zhejiang province, marking the successful trial of the train-sea combined transportation channel between the two cities.

Lin Haiwei, head of the Zhejiang-assisted Sichuan work team in Dazhou, said that it can make full use of the world's largest port Ningbo Zhoushan Port while helping Dazhou become the gateway of Sichuan to East China.

Dazhou has always been the distribution center of Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces since ancient times. It aims to build a modern logistics industry cluster worth 50 billion yuan ($7.73 billion).

"Currently, Dazhou Logistics Industrial Park is about to be completed, while the Zhoushan-made 14,000-ton new ship will be put into use soon," noted Lin, adding that both will bring new opportunities to the train-sea combined transportation between the two cities.

"It's estimated that the new ship can directly sail to the ports along the middle reaches of Yangtze River Delta and therefore can help reduce logistics cost by 30 percent compared to the current sea-river-train combined transportation methods," said a staff member from Ningbo Zhoushan Port Zhoushan Port Co Ltd, the manufacturer of the 14,000-ton new ship.