Laminoir Train-380 🇧🇪

Also nicknamed « Shelt Factory », this former strip mill was part of the Usines Métallurgiques de Hainaut-Sambre. The first thing we can say about this building is that it’s really huge! Indeed, the factory looks like an enormous warehouse of about 630 meters long (for around 30 meters wide). Sun beams infiltrate through the roof of this construction located along the railroad. Here, the steel was refined in « billets » of steel ready for exportation.

Built in the haste and the euphoria at the end of the 60s, during a post-war period where the growth of the caroloregian steel industry continued to climb, this construction of this site arrived almost at the same time as the recession which was going to mark the last moments of glory of this industry. Besides, the products of this strip mill were already exploited by other companies of the region, so the site did not last long enough to step in front of the competition and eventually closed at the end of the 70s.

The place is today abandoned, and there is no remain of the machinery except for two rusty overhead cranes still suspended at the ceiling and a third one lying on the ground. This emptiness strengthens the sensation of size when we penetrate there. Next to the warehouse, there are still some annexes among which the changing rooms, a machinery room and a gasometer. Unmistakably, this place remembers us the wealth in the region of Charleroi during its era of glory…