A train graveyard (or cemetery) is where trains and rolling stock are discarded while awaiting collection, recycling, or destruction. They might be abandoned and left to decay. The term can also be used to include trams. Such vehicle graveyards are distinguished from an abandoned railway, which is a railway line that is no longer used for that purpose, and abandoned railway stations which are similarly disused. Some train graveyards attract visitors and can be a source of tourism, while others have had a role in preserving the history of the railways.
Some sites contain numerous trains that have been abandoned. In the United States, just outside Watervliet, New York, there is the main line for the Delaware and Hudson Railway. Alongside this railway line is a disused stretch of track which is home to rusted locomotives, passenger cars, and freight cars. [1] Istvántelki Főműhely, formerly one of the most important railway repair workshops in Hungary, now lays disused with old rolling stock on site. Many of them were taken there to be repaired before being exhibited in the Hungarian Railway History Park in Budapest but never made it. [2] One particularly sizable site is the Woodham Brothers scrapyard in Barry, Wales, from which 213 of 297 locomotives were rescued by the nascent railway preservation movement. [3] In Russia, there is one in Shumkovo. [4] In Tangshan in north China there are rusting locomotives on the sidings of now shut-down coal mines. A few have also been moved and exhibited in a Coal Mining Park and Railway museum. [5]
Trains can be abandoned in a location because it is deemed too difficult to move them. Two large steam locomotives of the Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad, for example, were left in a woodland area in the U.S. state of Maine after the end of a local logging operation because it was not practical to move them from such a remote location. [6]
Train graveyards can be of interest to railfans, urban explorers, and other tourists. The "Cementerio de Trenes" ("train cemetery") near Uyuni, Bolivia, serves as a tourist attraction with trains dating back to the 19th century left to rust in the extensive salt flats of the Salar de Uyuni. [7] The site contains a train alleged to have been robbed by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and has been called "one of the most striking and haunting sights in the deserts of southwest Bolivia". [8] [9]
The railway system in Great Britain is the oldest railway system in the world. The first locomotive-hauled public railway opened in 1825, which was followed by an era of rapid expansion. Most of the track is managed by Network Rail, which in 2017 had a network of 9,824 miles (15,811 km) of standard-gauge lines, of which 3,339 miles (5,374 km) were electrified. In addition, some cities have separate metro, light rail and tram systems, among them the historic London Underground and the Glasgow Subway. There are also many private railways, some of them narrow-gauge, which are primarily short lines for tourists. The main rail network is connected with that of continental Europe by the Channel Tunnel and High Speed 1, opened in 1994 and 2007 respectively.
A heritage railway or heritage railroad is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period in the history of rail transport.
Woodham Brothers Ltd is a trading business, based mainly around activities and premises located within Barry Docks, in Barry, South Wales. It is noted globally for its 1960s activity as a scrapyard, where 297 withdrawn British Railways steam locomotives were sent, from which 213 were rescued for the developing railway preservation movement.
The Barry Tourist Railway is a railway developed to attract visitors to Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales. It is a key element of the Barry Rail Centre which also includes engineering and training facilities.
Uyuni is a city in the southwest of Bolivia.
Vic Berry's Scrapyard was a large railway scrapyard situated in the former Great Central Railway Braunstone Gate goods yard in Leicester.
PT Kereta Api Indonesia (Persero) (lit. 'Indonesian Railways (State-owned) Limited', abbreviated as PT KAI or simply KAI) is a major railway operator in Indonesia and one of the public railway companies in the country. It is state-owned and pays track access charges. Its headquarters are located in Bandung, West Java. In 2019, KAI carried 429 million passengers and 47.2 million tonnes of cargo.
CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co., Ltd. is a Chinese rolling stock manufacturer based in Qingdao, Shandong province. Founded in 1900 during the German occupation, Qingdao Sifang is one of the oldest rolling stock manufacturers in China.
CRRC Tangshan Co., Ltd., is a manufacturer of rolling stock located in Tangshan, Hebei province, People's Republic of China. While Datong built mainline steam locomotives until 1988, Tangshan built steam for industrial use until 1999, becoming the last works in the world to build steam for non-tourist use.
Nippon Sharyo, Ltd. , formed in 1896, is a major rolling stock manufacturer based in Nagoya, Japan. In 1996, it abbreviated its name to "日本車両" Nippon Sharyō. Its shortest abbreviation is Nissha "日車". It was a listed company on Nikkei 225 until 2004. It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Nagoya Stock Exchange as ticker 7102. In 2008, Central Japan Railway Company became the majority shareholder (50.1%) of the financially struggling Nippon Sharyo making the firm a "consolidated subsidiary" of JR Central. In July 2012 Nippon Sharyo USA started production in their new facility in Rochelle, Illinois. The facility closed at the end of October 2018 due to a lack of orders.
Steam Incorporated, often abbreviated to Steam Inc., is a railway heritage and preservation society based at the Paekākāriki railway station, Paekākāriki at the southern end of the Kāpiti Coast, approximately 50 minutes north of Wellington on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. Unlike some societies who operate on preserved sections of closed branch lines, Steam Incorporated owns a depot beside one of the country's most important railway lines, the North Island Main Trunk railway, and restores heritage locomotives and rolling stock for use on excursions on the regular national rail network.
The General San Martín Railway (FCGSM), named after the former Argentine general José de San Martín, was one of the six state-owned Argentine railway companies formed after President Juan Perón's nationalisation of the railway network in 1948. The six companies were managed by Ferrocarriles Argentinos which was later broken up during the process of railway privatisation beginning in 1991 during Carlos Menem's presidency.
The Belgrano Sur line is an Argentine 1,000 mmmetre gauge commuter rail service in the Greater Buenos Aires area, currently operated by state-owned enterprise Trenes Argentinos. The Belgrano Sur runs over tracks and through stations built by the Franco–Belgian-owned Compañía General de Buenos Aires and British Midland companies at the beginning of the 20th century.
China CNR Corporation Limited (CNR) was a primary manufacturer of locomotives and rolling stock for the Chinese market. The company has also exported to over 80 countries and regions, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, France, Hong Kong, New Zealand. Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Turkey.
The Bromyard and Linton Light Railway is a 1-mile (1.6 km) single track, 2 ft narrow gauge railway line that runs between Bromyard and the Linton Industrial Estate, just off the A44. The track is laid on the bed of the old BR Worcester, Bromyard and Leominster Railway line. The track runs from an old depot, close to the site of the old Bromyard station, and ends under a bridge near a hospital turned flat block. The bridge was constructed in 1877 and carries a lane. There are disused engines in sheds at the main depot and Linton depot. The present track was used for the disused sandstone quarry.
China Railways SY is a 2-8-2 Mikado locomotive operated by the China Railway. It was built mostly by Tangshan Railway Vehicle between 1960 and 1999.
Materfer is an Argentine manufacturer of railway and road vehicles, located in the city of Ferreyra in Córdoba Province. The company was established by Fiat Concord in the late 1950s, being its subsidiary until 1980 when Sevel Argentina took over Fiat vehicles.
The CSR SDD7 is a 2,249 hp diesel-electric locomotive manufactured by CSR Corporation Limited from 2013 onwards for use in Argentina by Trenes Argentinos, a subsidiary of Ferrocarriles Argentinos S.E. On the San Martín Line in Buenos Aires Province, 24 of these locomotives are used, making up the entire rolling stock of the commuter rail line.
A vehicle graveyard, cemetery, or boneyard is a location in which several vehicles, often of the same type, have been abandoned. The vehicles might be awaiting dismantling or recycling, or may just be left to decay. Most sites are intentionally created and many have security to protect them while others are forgotten and lay undiscovered for some time. These sites can be popular destinations for urban explorers.