End of the line
IN the middle of a huge salt field in Bolivia, lies a rusting graveyard of old trains.
Over 100 steam locomotives and rail cars have been left in the “Cemetrio de trenes”, or the cemetery of trains.
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The mass graveyard sits just three kilometres outside of the southwest city of Uyuni and is a massive 4,000 feet above sea level.
It is believed that among the ruins is the first train that ever entered Bolivia.
The cemetery has now become a tourist hotspot for holiday-makers visiting the city that used to be the train hub of Bolivia.
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Bolivia’s train network was built in the 19th century thanks to the British.
Engineers from the UK were invited over to help build the railway lines and the vast majority of trains were imported from Britain.
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Photographer Chris Staring managed to capture these incredible pictures of the graveyard.
He said: "Most of the 19th century steam locomotives were imported from Britain so only designed and built for the British climate.
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“Although built to withstand harsh weather conditions, the locomotives proved to be no match for the challenging conditions that they found themselves in while chugging their way through the high altitudes, thin air, corrosive salty winds and extreme temperatures in Bolivia and Chile.”
The trains were used to transport minerals from the Andes mountains to the ports.
But this stopped in the 1940s, when the mining industry collapsed.
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The salt flats that the trains lie on now have helped to erode and rust the locomotives.
As they have been left in the open without any shelter, many of the shells have had graffiti painted on.
Pieces of scrap metal have also been stolen from the cemetery.
For more of Staring’s pictures, visit his .
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