Long Train Runnin'

At the end of 2008, I took a trip to Montana and became aware of an unexpected byproduct of the economic downturn as I saw a line of rail cars literally parked on the tracks near Great Falls that stretched to the horizon and beyond. Besides the visual blight, the cars had the potential to interrupt animal migration patterns and were a stark reminder of the challenges of managing supply chains during a recession. As it turns out, this is an issue that was impacting many areas of the country. According to a March 2009 story published by WKYC-TV of Cleveland/Akron, OH, “It is estimated that across the country more than 200,000 rail cars are now idled. If lined up on a single track, those cars would stretch from New York to Salt Lake City, Utah.”

Perhaps many of these cars will be used again as the economy slowly moves forward in 2010, and the issue of how to deal with large machines that aren’t needed for one reason or another remain. Living in the San Francisco Bay area, there have been many times over the years I have passed the ghost fleet of Navy warships parked since the end of World War II at Suisun Bay. Over the years they have become an environmental hazard “that are leaching toxic paint and other chemicals into the waterway.” The Air Force maintains a conceptually similar graveyard of old airplanes in Arizona near Tucson that has been used to generate at least some income from the sale of used planes, spare parts, and recycled metals. In the long run I believe our society will have to become much better at reuse and recycling of idled and outdated machinery or we will see many more “machine graveyards” in unexpected places.

So dear reader, do you have a good example to share of reuse and/or recycling on a grand scale?