The Train Graveyard in Bolivia

Located some 3 km outside the trading town of Uyuni, in southwest Bolivia, lies an antique train cemetery.  In the past, Uyuni was an important transport junction, connecting key cities in the region, but plans to turn the town into an even greater railway hub died an early death.



Construction on the network was started in 1888. It was encouraged by the then Bolivian President Aniceto Arce, who believed Bolivia would flourish with a good transport system, but it was also constantly sabotaged by the local Aymara indigenous Indians who saw it as an intrusion into their lives. The trains were mostly used by the mining companies. But in the 1940s, when the mining industry collapsed, partly due to the mineral depletion, many trains were abandoned thereby producing the train cemetery.