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This is NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.

Madrid has been the final destination for a train which has set the record for the longest train journey in history, 13,052 kilometers between the Chinese city of Yiwu and the Spanish capital.

The train departed from Yiwu in east China's Zhejiang Province on November 18th and arrived in Madrid on December 9th. It had 40 wagons, carrying 1,400 tons of cargo, consisting of stationary, craft products and products for the Christmas market. The train will return to China filled with luxury Spanish produce such as cured ham, olive oil and wine.

The historic journey marks the opening of a regular two-way rail link between China and Spain. The railway will commence operations early next year.

Two major advantages of rail travel are that it is much faster by rail than by boat, cutting the transportation time in half; and a train produces 60 percent less carbon dioxide pollution of a lorry making the same journey by road.

The marathon journey starts from eastern China and goes all the way to the west, passing through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany and France, before arriving in Spain.

The more than 13,000 kilometer journey between Madrid and Yiwu is a greater distance than that between the North and South Pole.

During the journey, the engine of the train has to be changed every 800 kilometers, while the crew shifts with each country the train traversed. Special stops were necessary at the frontier cities in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Spain, in order to deal with the different railway gauges encountered along the route.

Officials at the Chinese Embassy in Madrid say the railway shows the great attention China has paid to strengthening relations with Europe, while Spanish officials commented that the railway is like a "new silk road for the 21st century, except that now the commerce travels in both directions".

final destination n. 终点 如果旅途只有一个目的地，那destination就是“终点”的意思，无需final。如果不只一个目的地，那最后的一站才是final destination。

set the record for … v. 创下… 纪录 record之前可以加定语，以限制范围。如: set the world record for the number of cuss words in a movie （创下电影使用脏话次数的世界纪录） 同理，可以是set the Asian record, set the Chinese record等等。

wagon n. 原指四轮的运货马车，如今在英式英语中指铁路货车，在美式英语中指小手推车

consist of… vi. 由…组成 consist of的误用率特别高，它跟composed of的意思一样，但本质区别在于前者不及物，不能用被动语态（即不能说be consisted of）。

例句：

The book consists of 16 chapters. （全书共分16章。）

Our class is composed of 24 boys and 20 girls. （我们班由24个男生和20个女生组成。）

cured ham n. 腌制火腿

mark vt. 标志着… 该用法源自mark的名词本义：标记、符号。作动词时后面直接跟宾语，是及物动词。

例句：

The signing of the contract marks the official ending of a laborious bargaining process. （合同的签署标志着费力的商讨过程正式结束。）

commence v. 开始 可及物也可不及物，用法跟begin、start一样

例句：

及物：The company has commenced a training course on how to effectively use WeChat. （公司开始进行如何有效使用微信的培训。）

不及物：The meeting is scheduled to commence at 2pm. （会议定于下午两点开始。）

carbon dioxide pollution n. 二氧化碳污染