All vehicles stop moving sooner or later, and if these static wonders are grouped in one place, you're looking at a massive transportation graveyard. These are Jalopnik readers' ten favorites.
10.) Harry’s U-Pull-It In West Hazleton, PA
They claim this is the world's largest salvage yard, but there are many similar ones all across the US, not to mention the smaller but less accessible ones in Europe. Just imagine what sort of treasures can be found in a place like this...
Suggested By: DocWalt, Photo Credit: Harry's
9.) Chatillon Forest Car Graveyard In Belgium
It's not the biggest by far, but hidden away next to the village of Châtillon, this graveyard has a unique atmosphere and quite a bit of history:
The old-fashioned vehicles are thought to have been left in the wood near the village of Chatillon by U.S. soldiers who were stationed in southern Belgium during World War II.
When the war ended, military troops were sent home, but could not afford to ship the cars they had bought and hid them in the forest.
Since then, other cars have been added to the cemetery, many by soldiers stationed in the area after the war.
The WWII part of the story is a bit strange since most cars seem to be from post-war Europe, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be left there by stationed Americans.
Suggested By: Alfi, Photo Credit: Matthias Weinberger
8.) Taxi Graveyard In China
According to an article on lifed.com, the reason for China's abandoned taxi yard is the fact that people buy their own cars now:
Decades ago in China, consumer goods such as personal vehicles and T.V.s were reserved for only wealthy folks. The common man had no choice but to hail a taxi every time he needed to go somewhere. Because of that, China was overridden with yellow taxis. In 1978, the Chinese economy started growing and, thirty four years later, it’s still going strong. Personal vehicles become more and more accessible to the Chinese middle class, and the yellow taxis eventually become obsolete. The government had to put them somewhere, so they created this yellow taxi graveyard.
Suggested By: 6cyl, Photo Credit: reddit
7.) The Sultan of Brunei's Garage
As you probably know, the Sultan of Brunei has everything you've ever dreamed of with four wheels. Unfortunately, he also seems to be lacking the time and/or the money to keep his enormous collection in shape. Some of his cars might get saved eventually, but most will just rot there with zero miles on the clock. What a shame.
Suggested By: Highball!, Photo Credit: Jalopnik
6.) Space
While technically space is not a transportation graveyard, we used lots of now also abandoned rockets to get all that debris up there. Thanks to that, the ISS and crucial satellites have to navigate through 319,000 pieces of junk.
Suggested By: Brian, The Life of, Photo Credit: Kristen Philipkoski
5.) Motorcycle Salvage Yard, Arizona
Basically, no matter what you need for your bike, you will certainly find it in Arizona. The parts might be a bit weathered though...
Suggested By: $kaycog, Photo Credit: sohc4.net
4.) Train Cemetery in Uyuni, Bolivia
Here comes a short explanation from Wikipedia of why Bolivia has the most haunting train cemetery in the world:
Located two miles outside Uyuni, the Bolivian town that served as a distribution hub for the trains carrying minerals on their way to the Pacific Ocean ports. The train lines were built by British engineers, with the construction starting in 1888 and ending in 1892. The trains were mostly used by the mining companies. In the 1940s, the mining industry collapsed, partly due to the mineral depletion. Many trains were abandoned thereby producing the train cemetery.
My X-type too is a real Jaguar has also pointed out where current locomotives go in Ohio for a long if not endless hibernation session.
Suggested By: POD, Photo Credit: Kris Krug
3.) 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group in Tucson
According to Wikipedia, AMARG takes care of more than 4,400 aircraft, which makes it the largest aircraft storage and preservation facility in the world.
Suggested By: pauljones, Photo Credit: Wikipedia
2.) The Bay Of Corruption, Nouadhibou
The ship scrap yards of Bangladesh and India are terrifying and polluting enough, but Mauritania takes the crown. EssExTee explains what's going on:
The worlds largest ship graveyard lies in Nouadhibou, Mauritania. Lax laws and government corruption meant that global corporations could get away with just dumping their old ships there rather than paying money for the ships to be properly broken. It is estimated that there are over 300 ship carcasses in the harbor.
Suggested By: Chairman Kaga, Photo Credit: Google Earth
1.) Chernobyl
The ruins of Chernobyl is still filled highly radioactive scrap metal. The Soviet military vehicles used for the massive cleanup operation are all dangerously irradiated, some of which are so bad they had to be buried. The very poor local residents try to salvage the metal even with the army protecting the area.
Kuwait deserves a honorable mention with its also radioactive tanks thanks to depleted uranium rounds.
Suggested By: Trunk Impaired 318, Photo Credit: Getty Images
Welcome back to Answers of the Day - our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy!
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