Water towers

Antwerp has been connected to the Netherlands by rail since 1854. In the early days, trains wriggled through the city centre at street level, which was not ideal. Indeed, steam locomotives caused a lot of noise and odour during their passage.

A steel water tower marks the site of the long-defunct coal mine Carolus Magnus in the Aachen mining district.

Flemish workers flocked to Mouscron during the interwar to work in textile factories. The city, therefore, had to pull out all the stops to cope with the growing population.

A water tower in the Walloon Brabant village of Virginal-Samme still recalls the architecture of the 1940s.

Melle, near Ghent, was once the walhalla for flower and ornamental cultivation. Greenhouses, florist houses and horticultural businesses flanked the roads.

In a remote corner of the Maritime Station, a former freight station in Brussels, a water tower in the Art Nouveau style was built to refuel steam locomotives with water.

The Ypres water tower has dominated the landscape for almost a hundred years. It dates from the period of reconstruction after the devastating First World War.

In the early twentieth century, a water tower was erected near the Treignes border station to supply the steam locomotives running between Charleroi and the French border.

Mariembourg station, today the terminus of railway line 132 between Charleroi and the Belgian-French border, has a spacious water tower in store.