How a Fleet of Trains got Dumped in Bolivia's Desert – Uyuni Railway Graveyard



In today’s video, we take a look at the engines of the FCAB and how they ended up rusting in the Desert

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Picture & Information References:
https://blog.howlanders.com/en/bolivia/uyuni-train-cemetery/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyuni
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrocarril_de_Antofagasta_a_Bolivia
https://www.salardeuyuni.com/train-graveyard/#:~:text=Many%20imported%20trains%20from%20Britain,train%20cemetery%20we%20see%20today.
https://www.historyhit.com/locations/train-cemetery/

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PsamatheM
Floyd Nello
Martin St-Amant
Rodoluca
Industrial Wales
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Alon Siton/HISTORICAL RAILWAY IMAGES

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35 thoughts on “How a Fleet of Trains got Dumped in Bolivia's Desert – Uyuni Railway Graveyard”

  1. Ima be real…Seeing machines like locomotives and definitely ships being left abandoned are just haunting

    Road vehicles not so much because….I dunno I guess the fact I see cars like every single day makes me immune. Trains and ships are rare for me to see

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  2. The first time I heard about these engines was in a book of steam traction around the world. The South American chapter wasn't lengthy and Bolivia was only one of the roughly three South American countries mentioned and the Uyuni Desert Graveyard engines were mentioned. I can provide a bit more on the engines there. Uyuni is said to have a total of 31 steam engines with 11 actually being in the graveyard with the rest either being dumped at, or around, the depot or as part of a display. Yes, there is an museum in Uyuni for some of these engines. The one that is in the best condition is a Hunslet 2-8-4T built in 1912 on La Ferrovia Street. A sister locomotive is inside the museum along with a 1954-built Vulcan 4-8-2. As for those engines that are not on display, the majority are 2-8-2s and 4-8-2+2-8-4s. There are three 4-8-4s, a single 4-6-2 and a single 2-10-2.

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  3. This reminds me of a place i visited in Uzbekistan called Muynak/Moynaq. It was a former Aral Sea fishing village but as a result of the ecological disaster in the Aral sea the waterline is nearly 100 miles from the town. However the rusting skeletons of fishing boats still sit isolated in the now-desert.

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  4. Good video. It reminds me of a place in the rural Maine forests where a logging railroad closed up in the 1930's and abandoned two steam locomotives and some freight cars. For a long time their location was known pretty much only to hikers, but a trail and road have been built nearby in 2019. The rusty hulks now act as a kind of monument.

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  5. They may be a somewhat sad sight, but had they not been left to rot, they probably would have been scrapped and disappeared forever. When I lived in New Zealand for a couüle of years I saw several situations where several vintage cars and trucks were melting back into the ground, way beyond restoration. This is when I realized that in my native Germany, all such sites have been cleared, and even the odd rough shaped vintage trucks you could see tucked away next to the railway track some 20 years ago are disappearing. I still hope they were old enough to be loved and restored when their time came. However, many probably are in a lovely little museum on the countryside, right next to the farm that my rabbit went to when I was a kid.

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