Report - Cockerill-Sambre, Charleroi, Belgium, August 2021

[ikkdjct]

The Cockerill-Sambre steelworks in Charleroi is one of these Belgian sites where you need several days to explore it all in depth. It comprises two mainl "sites" on the south bank of the River Sambre, namely the HF4 and the "Wet Dogs" Power Station, while on the north bank you can visit the Blue Power Station and the cokeworks. Unfortunately, the gods do not look favourably on my efforts to visit the Cockerill-Sambre site in Charleroi. The first time I visited in 2019 while driving through I ended up at the Police Station even before I managed to set a foot on the site as my car got broken into and looted. Having lost my boots, gloves and various other bits and after several hours at the Police Station and the garage I unfortunately lost interest in visiting the site. So when I passed through Charleroi again this year I thought I would go and have another try and admittedly I now made it further than in 2019. Getting onto the site is straightforward and I made it into the boiler house without any problems at all. I spent a couple of hours exploring the boiler house when I suddenly heard voices coming from the turbine hall next door. It turned out that people were working in the turbine hall and to my disappointment they were there from until late evening when I left since I still had a long way to drive. Unfortunately, there were also workmen walking around the coke plant so that in the end I only managed to see the boiler house. Hopefully I will manage to return this winter...

As I provided some of the history of the Cockerill-Sambre company here I will proceed directly to the photos.

And a few random pictures from the cokeworks (the bits I managed to see...)

Hope you like the photos even though they only cover a tiny area...

 

[Parysperspective]

The rust with the splashes of colours with machinery. Pure industrial pron. Hearts for eyes. Great pics.

 

[Terminal Decline]

Shame you couldn't see the turbine hall, but that boiler house is excellent! The machinery in those last two photos look like turbo exhausters to me - a steam turbine attached to a pump which extracted gas from the ovens.

 

[zombizza]

I loved this place.
Wonder what the workmen are up to?, As expecially the coke works is truly derelict.
As you say, you could easily spend a week covering these 2 zones if you wanted to see every nook and crannie

 

[HughieD]

Top-notch industrial goodness mate!

 

[aitakaitov]

Shame about the turbine hall, but the sensors are not there anymore, so it's safe to visit - definitely worth it if you can visit again

 

[KPUrban_]

As usual, cracking images and some great industry.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Crisp industrial goodness. Great report

 

[Dragon_Urbex]

I really like this. Nice photographs. And that's appalling that your car was broken into and had stuff stolen, hopefully nothing expensive.

 

[ikkdjct]

Shame about the turbine hall, but the sensors are not there anymore, so it's safe to visit - definitely worth it if you can visit again

Will try again although I heard that they installed new cameras in the turbine hall at some stage after my visit.

 

[aitakaitov]

Will try again although I heard that they installed new cameras in the turbine hall at some stage after my visit.

That's possible, my info is from summer 2020, so it's a year old already

Well, learned about ten minutes ago that someone got caught there recently - the security was not very nice, apparently, they either had to pay 250 euros on the spot or take it to the court.