How Old Train Cars Are Being Repurposed, And What You Can Use Them For

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It used to be that old train cars sat idle in a railroad graveyard, collecting rust and falling apart. Sometimes they would serve as temporary homes to hobos, who waited for the next moving train to take them somewhere else. Now train cars of all types, kinds, shapes, and sizes are being repurposed after they have outlived their railway days. See what different cars are being made into, and what you can use them for. 

Used Tank Car Culverts

Old tank cars, the kind that carried gases, liquids, water, gasoline, and chemicals of all kinds, are easily converted into massive culvert pipes. It just takes a blowtorch or welder's torch to cut off both of the rounded ends to open up the body of the tank, and the removal of all other components that attach to the body of the tank. As massive culvert pipes, you can use them for underground sewer construction, channeling storm waters away from cities and into waterways, and in the construction of dams where these used tank car culverts can be used to help flush debris from the dam itself. 

Mobile Box Car Storage Units

Boxcars help ship goods all over the country by rail. It comes as no surprise that people are repurposing them into mobile storage units. If you would rather buy old boxcars and keep them on your property, you can. Most are small enough to fit onto a property in the same way that a large shed or workshop would fit, and can hold as much stuff as would fit into three or four rooms from your house. Better still, you can padlock them and have your stuff in sight at all times. 

Flatbed Cars into Tiny Houses

Imagine a flatbed car, with or without the vertical posts used to keep lumber and/or machinery on the car, being used and converted into a "tiny" house. It is a very unique means of using something on wheels that can either stay on the rail tracks or be taken off of the tracks and planted anywhere you like. The flatbed boards become the floor/foundation of your tiny house, and you can create a floor plan to fit the flatbed as you choose. Some people are even combining boxcars with flatbed cars to create a not-so-tiny house with multiple rooms, and the means to walk in and out of every car as though they have always been a house and not cars connected to a train. 


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