Coal mines

An offshoot of the South Limburg coal vein extends far beyond the German border. That explains why you can also find coal mines north of Aachen.

On 31 December 1974, the miners of the Oranje-Nassau I in Heerlen mined the last lump of Dutch coal, half a century ago.

The iron headframe was preserved on the site where the French Compagnie des Mines de Liévin laid its first coal mine in 1858.

Four concrete cooling towers flank the former Beringen mine power plant, the only preserved mine cooling towers in the Limburg mining region.

In 1874, a cross-border railway connected the Belgian town of Péruwelz with the French municipality of Anzin. The aim was to export coal from the northern French mining basin to Belgium.

After over half a century, a double staircase climbing up the railway embankment is the only reminder of the vanished Tertre Charbonnage train station.

This truncated metal headframe took miners from the French Meurchin coal mine four hundred metres underground to cut coal.

Fosse Mathilde is one of the oldest preserved mining buildings in the northern French mining basin. The brick complex was built in 1831. The Compagnie des Mines d'Anzin mined coal there until 1862.

The French mining company Compagnie des mines de Vicoigne-Noeux-Drocourt pulled out all the stops in 1886 when it modernised its mining headquarters in Noeux-les-Mines. 

Tuesday, May 15, 1934. In the Fief de Lambrechies mine in Quaregnon (Belgium), 46 miners are trapped like rats 821 metres underground after a mine gas explosion. Eleven rescuers dive into the shaft in search of survivors.