The world's largest air cargo plane was used to deliver two railway coaches from Germany to China.
The rail vehicles were built by Bombardier, the first of 156 cars for Line 2 of Guangzhou's metro system.
The coaches, produced by Bombardier in Germany, were transported to China on board an Antonov AN124 in November 2002.
It took 36 hours and three refuelling stops to fly the 73-ton load from Germany to China.
Guangzhou's metro Line 2 was scheduled to open in December.
Line 1 has been operating Bombardier-built metro cars since 1997.
Boambardier which has a train building plant at Derby, is also involved in a joint venture with China to build 300 100mph mainline rail coaches.
The first of these inter-city coaches, built at Qingdao, were delivered in January 2003.
Information from Bombardier.