Mining heritage in Limburg

The Albert Canal was opened to shipping in 1939. However, its construction had consequences for rail traffic. Railway line 20's route between Hasselt and Maastricht was changed, and the Albert Canal at Gellik was crossed via a Vierendeel bridge.

Houthalen is the last mine that opend its doors in the Kempen coal basin. Only the main building and the two steel headframes were preserved.

Between 1921 and 1981, 1,750 patients of the nearby Psychiatric Hospital found their final resting place in a cemetery deep in the woods of Rekem, Belgium.

The "Charbonnages André Dumont-sous Asch" is the full name of the Waterschei mine—a tribute to Professor Dumont, the geologist who discovered the coal layers in As.

A tangle of railways ran through the Limburg coal region, transporting millions of tons of coal to ports and blast furnaces. The coal wagons have disappeared, but old stations and tracks remind us of the busy traffic of yesteryear.

Over a century ago, in 1917, the coal mine of Winterslag was the first Kempen mine to open its gates.

With its two headframes, water towers, bathing rooms, coal washeries and unloading floors, the Beringen coal mine is the most complete mining site in the Belgian coal region Limburg.

To export the millions of tons of coal produced in one of the seven Limburg mines, a coal railway line zigzagged from one coal mine to another.