The article discusses the main aspects of the interaction between transport universities of Russia and the People’s Republic of China for improving the performance of the railway industry in terms of transportation of goods and passengers. The analysis takes account of the specific features of the transport and logistics sectors in the exchange of goods between the two countries. Cooperation in the field of transportation of goods and passengers is based on the market situation. However, approaches to training professionals for solving new challenges are not given sufficient attention. Given the reorientation of the main transport flows towards the East and the active loading of the traffic in international transport corridors, improving the performance of the transport systems in the two countries requires further development of transport hubs bringing together logistics and capacities of various transport modes. This will require training highly skilled personnel on the basis of common educational standards of both Russia and China. At the same time, students, as prospective specialists, should understand the specific features of geo-economic interaction, the nature of the development of cross-border logistics centres, and have an idea of the full operational cycle: from industrial to transport implementation in logistics of transportation. The solution lies in the development and implementation of joint educational programmes and curricula of industry-specific educational institutions in the two countries. Volga State Transport University and Liaoning Railway Vocational and Technical College implement joint educational partnership programmes within the framework of their cooperation agreement. In the future, it will be necessary to implement joint educational projects with elements of a multicultural approach for training both students and working professionals.