Thessaloniki Train Cemetery

On the outskirts of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, hundreds of railroad cars have been standing abandoned on their railway sidings, rusting away for decades.

These rusting and vandalized railroad cars outside of Thessaloniki seem stuck in a state of limbo. The Hellenic Railways Organisation (ΟΣΕ), Greece’s national rail company, leaves their decommissioned trains in the ever growing graveyard, which now has thousands of the disused cars. They have made attempts to sell them as scrap metal but still, since they were left there to rot in the 1980s, they are still standing there on the ten tracks in the suburb of Nea Ionia.

Any new attempts to sell the cars have not been helped by the history of shady business dealings and scrap smuggling surrounding this and many other similar sites.

Meanwhile the train cars remain stuck there, slowly rusting away exposed to weather and wind, overgrown by grass and trees. Looking a little sad, but like many deteriorating ghost trains, a little more beautiful with each passing year.