Tue, Feb 3, 2009
Environmental Graffiti Will be Changing Dramatically Soon. Get a Sneak Preview By Signing Up Here.
![]()
Image by: netwalker
It’s like a trainspotter’s sick dream. In southwest Bolivia lies a place where it looks as if all the country’s ailing old locomotives have rolled into the wilderness to chug their last chugs – or been struck dead on the spot at the hand of the evil stationmaster in the Earth’s furnace. If the sight of decaying trains doesn’t give you the creeps, take a tour through this South American train cemetery. We dare you.
![]()
Image by: Taylor Weidman
This gigantic train graveyard – chock-full of the hollow husks and skeletal remains of long forsaken steam engines – is situated on the deserted outskirts of the small trading post of Uyuni, high in the Andean plane some 3,670 m above sea level.
![]()
Image by: Natmandu
Uyuni has a history as an important transport junction, connecting key cities in the region, but plans to turn the town into an even greater railway hub evidently died an early death. Construction on the network was started in the late 19th Century but abandoned before work was completed, leaving the train lines to fall into disrepair.
![]()
Image by: Natmandu
Technical and geographical difficulties, disputes with neighbouring countries over lost territory, and more recent Western interests have all taken their toll on Bolivia’s rundown railways.
![]()
Image by: Natmandu
The locomotives in Uyuni are thought to date from the early part of the 20th Century; mainly imports from Britain, which controlled the development of Bolivia’s railway system as it did so much of the country’s industry. Now, graffiti – some sharp, some banal – marks the rusted and disintegrating train carcasses. Time has worn on.
![]()
Image by: Natmandu
Dust devils and the unforgiving sun have done their work, eating away at the shells of these once proud mechanical beasts. But it’s the spectral salt winds from the nearby Salar de Uyuni, the world’s vastest salt flats, that have had the most keenly corrosive effect.
![]()
Image: Natmandu
This wasteland – bereft of guards or fences – is the cemetery where Bolivia’s once proud locomotives have found their final resting place.
![]()
Image by: R Lowseck
If you want to find out all the latest news on the environment, why not subscribe to our RSS feed? We’ll even throw in a free album.
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else.”
[...] locomotivas do país se reuniram na imensidão para dar seu último suspiro. Este gigantesco Cemitério de Trens – completamente lotado de carcaças ocas e esqueléticas de velhas locomotivas a muito tempo [...]
February 5th, 2009 at 12:29 am
These are great pics. Exactly where in Bilivia is this. I would like to venture there to also document the trains at some stage. Is it difficult to get to?
Fabulous photos, you may be interested in the night shots on my website.
http://www.opticgroove.com.au.
Thanks for sharing
February 6th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
@Dave:
This is in the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia. Usually you pass by it when you take the train/bus from La Paz/Oruro to Potosi.