I thought I’d put my feet up today and have a rest – but then I got sent this.
I get sent lots of wierd and wonderful stuff, and if I like it, I pretty much post it.
I have no idea why I found this video of abandoned trains so captivating, but I thought you might too.
Hope you enjoyed it as much as me – it reminded me of the sleeping giants post, which also led on to this one.
And who can forget Eric’s fantastic weathering ‘how to’ post.
Please do keep ’em coming.
Best
Al
PS
interesting video but it looks as though all salvage items have been removed and just old rusting steel and wood left to rot away with the gosts of their past.
Abandoned trains can be seen almost anywhere a railroad is, or was. It’s a sad commentary on the “throw away society” that’s been adopted around the world. When I think of value in the metal alone, I can’t believe more isn’t being done to recycle the abandoned hulks.
Abandoned trains.
What a pleasure to see the end of life of these locos and carriages as opposed: to their pristine new condition.
It got me wondering how long they remain as such before being scrapped completely and as to whether they had habitants in them over night. Strange what one thinks of but a welcome diversion to what we normally see.
Fantastic collection! Thanks for the display. Don’t stop your history.
Some great subjects for incorporating into a model layout – in reality sad but real-life as these iron ladies are never truely recycled, except as ferric & ferrous dust
Spooky! Just the thing for Hallowe’en . Some fascinating stuff there, and some surprisingly modern ones too, I was amazed there are abandoned Superliner cars. When I was young, we occasionally went to Dai Woodham’s Barry scrapyard to see the hundreds of steam locos dumped there, many of which have since been preserved of course, and it is dreadful to think where we would be today if Dai hadn’t decided to wait for copper prices to go up before cutting the fire boxes out of them, also he luckily had plenty of old scrap wagons which were easier to cut for steel to keep his staff busy. Most other yards reduced locos to fragments in days or weeks.
Rod
Chilling as I look apon the rusting trains in there graves I can only think that this is how our society treats its older people. This little film is very powerful making its point.
Nicely done
It is always sad to see, when things are crumbling. I often think about, that once upon a time, these things were new. Many selebrated with flags and music, when they came from the factory.
It made me feel sad (being a 5th generation railway man) to see how some beautiful items just being left to rot. I would love to have enough money to buy and restore some of the coaches into a railway motel.
It did make me wonder what they looked like in their former life… …..so sad.
These were really neat to look at. I love the old wooden Pullman Passenger cars. It would be awesome to restore those or take a couple of them, hook them together and make a home out of them. Put a kitchen in one, a living room in another and a bedroom in a third. Unfortunately for me I don’t have money to make that dream come true.
It would be far better and dignified to break them than leave them humiliated like that.
Incorporating a little of this tn a layout would ad interest.
Fantastic photographs, but what a sad end to some great trains. They seem to be from a number of different countries maybe someone somewhere will produce a list with the approximate destinations
Thanks for the video….very eerie but very cool to see..being from Chicago, I took interest in what appeared to be Metra bi-level commuter cars somewhere in the desert. Probably southwest US. that would have been a long funeral procession…
Makes me very sad. These once were proud machines.
This is an interesting testament to how we revere the beauty of new and flashy but abandon things that no longer fill that bill. We just let them rust away having served their useful purpose and are no longer wanted. It’s what we do to our aging population in America. Put them in towers dark and cold and let them rust away.
Nicely done…
Only in America can they afford to waste that much steel. The rest of us recycle everything we can.
You would not have seen these during WW2. They all would have been collected for scrap iron.
If only they could talk the stories they could tell. Makes a person think
There was equiment from many countries in this video. I agree, it is shamfull to waste. When I look at all the passenger cars, what I see is the wasted opportunity to have recycled them into inexpensive renovated housing for the vast numbers of homeless in the world.
Ghost trains from around the world in this video. To bad they arent cut up and melted down to reuse all that steel. All those wooden cars, the wood can be re-purposed. We all should be ashamed of ourselves for this waste. But he video was beautiful to watch. Love the music background. Sort of spooky.
Fascinating! All’s it needs now are some zombies!!
Very intelligent comments especially housing for homeless, Vets in particular!
Beautiful and sad
I think they are all from the USA.. I think one or two are tank engines. Some of our
small RR did use them.
I don’t think we have the steel faciilites to do any thing with them any more. The
steel facilities are also rusting away.
DOyou have anything in 0 gauage. What I have seen and got is too small
There – but, for our own personal energy, go we !
Perhaps we see a ‘dignified end’ for some; or, a sad abandonment for others.
Recycling doesn’t necessarily resolve the ageing process. But, this video does pay an appropriate ‘tribute’ to those who have passed – perhaps like cemetery tombstones ? Note that some are welcomed ‘billboards’ for those who find these treasures.
The video shows how the great machines of the past that transported us here, are left to slowly disintegrate and are all long forgotten. I tend to agree with 10:39 am that is a metaphor of how society deals with our seniors. Wish I could say “Cheers” but when I see those one-time marvelous machines, neglected and wasting away, I can’t. NJ Mark
Wow! Ghosts don’t usually bother me, but this made me sad…
Thanks for sharing!
Patti
A very moving video. I worked in the Australian Iron and steel industry (BHP’s Newcastle plant) all my life, I retired about 25 years ago. It’s a well-known fact that to change molten iron into steel, you have to feed scrap steel into the open hearth furnace (old times) or into the basic oxygen steelmaking ladle (more recent times) together with the molten iron.
However, I suspect that all the “retired” rolling stock” and locos are positioned great many kilometres from an operating steelworks. Then, there is the cost of the oxygen and acetylene gases and (for cutting), labour for cutting and carting, supervision and ancillary services, and fuel, so it os ever so much easier just to leave these thing in situ.
Bruce from Maitland NSW
These pictures are very interesting but at the same time very sad. walt
Brought back memories of train rides from about 1943 to 1948. Went from Crockett Cal. To visit grandparents i OGDEN UTAH. Remember returning home on train that was full of Army men. Oh!! the sound of click clack click clack.
As an old car nut as well as RR afficianado, I appreciate the pics.
I’ve spent many hours roaming auto junkyards. They are like museums.
Though in sad condition; many of us can remember them from their
glory days. Sometimes we can even find parts to keep the survivors on
the road.
Having grown up blocks from the Pennsylvania tracks both passenger and freight lines it is a sad commentary of our past being left out for our future needs. Some of my family members worked at the Baldwin locomotive plant near Philadelphia PA. I used to enjoy riding the old cars into the city. Also the big steam engines at 11 pm pulling freight cars and the entire ground shaking. The good memories and the sad reality of progress. I miss them. Thanks for stoking the fires of the past Al.
Yours, Frank
P.S. I have been looking for an old brown and white photo of my grandfather standing in the cab of a steam Loco he designed and built for a coal mining Co he worked for in Duryea Pennsylvania at the turn of the 20th century. When I find it I will share it with you all.
I would love to go see these in person and video tape and picture them myself. Highly interesting!
That is truly the sadest vidio I ever saw.. I hope some day they might just be restored.
It is very sad. To think that at one time all of these were active rolling stock, locos and trolly cars doing an important job on the rails. And now, just left to rust and deteriorate. This speaks volumes on how wasteful we are as a society.
It is a pity that the railroad companies did not think of letting their old cars be used for homeless folks.
Additionally, if North America starts producing steel in large quantities again, all of the steel cars will be gone since it is much easier to melt already produced steel items than to dig up ore and process it.
I would love to own several old steam engines to see if I could make one good one that runs. Renting track time is expensive though!
Good movie on the old trains. Makes me feel how a lot of people are treated when they get old and cannot work any longer.
Keep posting the new and old trains so we do not repeat history by wasting things we worked so hard to build!
It was sad to see these giants reduced to the rusting and rotting hulks, but that comment on our society has already been made. I was given some old locos that no longer run (missing trucks, etc) and was planning on making a small part of my yard into a museum of sorts. These images gave me some ideas on making it look realistic, Thanks for sharing this with us.
Herb in North Carolina
They didn’t make me sad but a few of them gave me the willies not knowing what ghosts are roaming the aisles. If you look close enough you can see the conductor and a waiter walking down the aisle. If you don’t believe, you won’t see.
Rick from \Markham, Ontario, Canada.
Cheryl Koby, look at about 1.35 of the video. It almost looks like an Electroliner, although I believe they are all accounted for.
To the others, I would guess that at least some of these trains are sitting in railroad museums somwhere, awaiting their turn to be restored. (Or giving up parts so that others can be restored.)
If you ever get to Chicago, there are a number of railtoad museums to visit within 50 miles. Other cities in the US have them as well. But it takes an awful lot of man hours to restore them. Nonetheless, we have restored a huge amount of abandoned railroad equipment here.
Absolutely awesome video. We only tend to see active railroad activity on our layouts and tend to forget the “beauty” of the abandoned. Would add a level of realism to our efforts to park some of our older, non-functioning rail stock on a”junk” siding! hank you for sharing!
Doug from Virginia.
Great video,I guess sadly of a great era that sit’s in decay now!! It would be interesting to see it collected in one massive bone yard of steel,how big would it
be !? It is good to be able to see working museums around the country!! My son and I own eight feet of rail in bringing back the V&T railroad to Virginia City NV.
Steam is cool and seeing it live in the living museum Of VC is awesome!!
Spotted one EWS diesel. Wonder where that is?
I think they went a little too far with their weathering technique. LOL
I know a lot of people felt sadness at seeing all these venerable old engines just rusting and rotting away in their abandonment. Yet, there is a certain beauty to nature reclaiming what man has fabricated from her materials. Even the graffiti on some of the engines has a certain beauty to it. Also, since many of us are of an age when we might feel as abandoned as these old relics, it’s natural to compare ourselves to them.
Whenever I start to feel sad about how old I am or that the end is nearer than the beginning, I remember that in a few billion years, the sun will become a red giant and envelop the earth, cooking everything back into primary elements. Then our molecules or atoms will merge with all the others that have ever existed here on this planet. I somehow find that a comforting thought. Plus, there’s not much we can do about getting older. Even the brightest scientists and philosophers have not been able to explain why time’s arrow only goes forward.
Nice Work.!!!!!!!