The Trip of a Lifetime: The New Orient Express - London to Beijing in Just Two Days

We know the Chinese are making great strides on the world stage. And they're not afraid to innovate or think big. So now they've turned their attention and their impressive engineers to the building of a new 200mph '"Orient Express" rail line linking Europe, the Middle East, India and Asia.

The idea is that China will fund the line and the trains in return for natural resources from the countries they pass through.

The main Chinese 'Orient Express' line would link London, England with Beijing in China. Passengers heading to China on the super-fast train would whizz through Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Kiev, St Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Astana in Kazakhstan, Irkutsk, Ulan Bator in Mongolia, and Khabarovsk in Russia's far east. The last stop would be Beijing. The journey of 8,150 miles would take just two days. (Flights to Beijing from London currently take around 10 hours.)

Offshoots are also planned from the new Chinese rail service with lines taking passengers to Turkmenistan, Iran, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore.

China has already built the world's fastest train. The 250mph service links the Chinese cities of Wuhan and Guangzhou.

But the timing of the new London-Beijing rail link is a little disappointing if you're impatient to buy a ticket. A Chinese spokesman, Wang Mengshu, said that "the best case scenario is that the [rail network] will be completed in a decade". He added that "it was not China that pushed the idea to start with. It was the other countries that came to us. These countries cannot fully-implement the construction of a high-speed rail network and they hope to draw on our experience and technology."

Not that China minds foregoing cash payment for the rail infrastructure and rolling stock. Mr Mengshu explained:

"We would actually prefer the other countries to pay in natural resources rather than make their own capital investment."