Driving down Interstate 10 in Arizona, there is an odd sight; hundreds of Union Pacific Locomotives lined up on a siding for miles.
(not my photo) It looks like an entire train of locomotives, except it’s longer than any train you’ve ever seen. It’s eerie. We googled it. Seems we, as a country, are using less coal. That means less coal trains hauling it across the country. That and a decline in the sale and transport of a few other commodities results in a whole lot of idle locomotives right now. The Arizona desert is the perfect place to store them. The military has been using the Arizona desert as a parking lot for unneeded aircraft for years.
(not my photo) The conditions outside Tucson are perfect for minimal corrosion, and minimal site preparation to store airplanes on the ground. There is a separate boneyard for civilian aircraft. So now there is a locomotive “boneyard” out there as well.
(not my photo) It looks like an entire train of locomotives, except it’s longer than any train you’ve ever seen. It’s eerie. We googled it. Seems we, as a country, are using less coal. That means less coal trains hauling it across the country. That and a decline in the sale and transport of a few other commodities results in a whole lot of idle locomotives right now. The Arizona desert is the perfect place to store them. The military has been using the Arizona desert as a parking lot for unneeded aircraft for years.(not my photo) The conditions outside Tucson are perfect for minimal corrosion, and minimal site preparation to store airplanes on the ground. There is a separate boneyard for civilian aircraft. So now there is a locomotive “boneyard” out there as well.