The Belgian City That Built A Metro Line... And Never Opened It

In the the mid-1980s, the city of Charleroi started building a metro line. But with half the stations already completed, and the track and signals already in place, construction suddenly stopped. The line never opened. What happened? And how much of it is still there? I travelled to southern Belgium to find out...

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[Squizie]

Nice video, however there's even more crazy backstory as to why that one line never opened, even when it was fully completed. It had to do with Charleroi having two different transit agencies at the time, one for regional and one for urban transit. The lines to Châtelet (and Soleilmont) were built by the regional operator, while the rest of the network including the core section was built by the urban operator. You can clearly see where both sections met, since they couldn't even agree on which sides the trains had to run (!) so they built a crossover halfway the line (clearly visible at 1:44). When the line was finally finished, they were in disagreement about how to operate it since they didn't discuss it beforehand, and so the line couldn't open. The opening was postponed again and again, but eventually an agreement was never met... I can't think of a more Belgian story than this.

[Pulsarstunes]

As a Belgian, i always explain the dutch and french speaking parts as an old married couple that always argues among themselves, until you ask why they don't simply split up. Then they suddenly unite and will argue with you instead.

[owl-arm]

A few years ago, my partner and I were driving around Belgium. We went to Charleroi and before finding somewhere to stay, we promptly got quite lost (not realising before leaving the UK that my satnav didn't work in Europe). We pulled up outside a building that didn't look like a hotel, yet had the word 'hotel' written on it. We popped in, to see if we could stay. It turned out to be a homeless hostel. The lady who ran it, Lorie, explained we couldn't stay, but said she knew of a cheap hotel. She tried to explain its whereabouts, but upon realising how complicated the set of directions would be, she popped into her office and gave us her satnav on the promise that we returned it the next day. An incredibly kind gesture to lend two strangers in good faith something that probably cost a penny or two. We used it to find the hotel, then the following day we went to the coal mine museum (which was fascinating), and the glass museum and then returned it to the hostel, much to the surprise of the majority of the residents, but not to Lorie! Sometimes people remind you that there is kindness in the world! We really could have used that satnav when we were trying to leave Gent.... Jeez!

[etatsopa]

Fun fact! There’s a place in Australia also called Charleroi, it was renamed after the Belgian city after Australian troops were stationed there following World War One and really enjoyed the hospitality. Charleroi, Australia has only 73 residents and does not have a metro.

[merlin]

Belgian here, your explanation was spot on. Charleroi has a pretty poor reputation. As a former coal mining and steel industry city, it was quite literally black and grim. It still has a lot of unemployment. It is however undergoing a strong transformation as you've seen in this video. So I agree with the advice to visit in a few years time.

[edward_]

A little update about the line in 2024, based on a recent visit. There's definitely a lot of work being done on the line, which does however mean that it's not possible to visit the abandoned stations, but its planned to be open by 2026, which is good. It's still worth visiting though, and there's a little bit of abandoned section of one of the other lines visible at Waterloo station.

[XalphYT]

If I were a resident of Charleroi and I had to walk past those unused subway stops every day to work since the 1970s, my rage would be incandescent by 2022.

[levidelise]

Belgian person here! The moment you said "the short answer: it's belgian politics" I literally laughed out loud because that's so typical Belgium. Anyways, I think it's cool that your pronunciation of the cities and stations is pretty spot on! Most English speaking people sound very funny when they try to say 'Charleroi', but you nailed it!

[byrondw]

I’m flemish and went to charleroi once and it was an absolutely surreal experience. It feels like a dystopian deserted theme park when you take the tram through the old mining structures. The city has a truly fantastical atmosphere.

[maurice_walker]

Speaking of colossal wastes of money and horror stories: A few years from now, Tim standing next to an abandoned industrial site. "Hello and Guten Tag! It is spring 2029, and I'm in the city of Greifswald in northeastern Germany. And today we're exploring the 1234 km, 10 billion Euro pipeline that was fully completed but not opened. Fully completed but not opened? What's the story there? Where does this pipeline go? Well, ..."

[melaniealexis]

As a Belgian let's put it like this : "Everybody is in charge, but nobody is responsible"

For exemple, during Covid early outbreak, we had 9 (NINE!) different Ministers of Health at the same time (due to belgian federalism), each of whom had a saying on Health matters. They were battling to know who had to decide. But there after, none of them was responsible for failures.

[maniak]

Charleroi reminds me a lot of the German city Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr area which experienced a similarly horrific decline, from a population of 390k in the 1960s to today's 250k. They even have a similar light rail metro with special tunnels that were constructed to withstand the earth sinking due to extensive coal mining. There also is an unused tunnel section right under the city for the U21 line that was planned from Gelsenkirchen to Bochum but then abandoned. They repurposed some of the tunnel sections for a tram line connecting the two cities, but not a full Stadtbahn such as the Bochum-Herne line U35, which is really fast and impressive.

[MatthewGeier]

What is more 'fun' is that the local rail enthusiasts semi-regularly run train tours onto the unfinished branch where the tracks are complete. For 40 years those tracks have been maintained enough that trains CAN run on them. If you hunt around you can probably find pictures of these tours. I can only assume there is some legal reason the tracks have to be maintained.

[VincentPhil]

The story of the Liège metro is its own appaling absurdity: they did start digging, went as far as purchasing the trains, but the tunnels were not water proof. They had to be filled back up and thus the Liège Metro was stillborn.
Belgium is a treasure trove of catastrophic policy mistakes.

[xadosgang]

I am so impressed as a foreigner (sorry maybe you have Belgian nationality) the research and the time investissement you have put in this video to show us more about Charleroi metro but also about Belgium in general. You did a amazing job, and as a Belgian, I just want to thanks you !

[Prosauropodslovecake]

As a Belgian, your view of Flanders and Wallonia as squabling siblings is pretty spot on I think.

[andreaspauls]

As an viewer from the german speaking part of belgium I for one am very happy you did not forget us :)

[olivierlaurent]

Being a Belgian with a part of my family from Charleroi, I was really surprised by the quality of your presentation. impressive. well done. I even learnt quite a lot of things.

[patrikfagard]

This is one of the main reasons why Belgium is as complicated as it is today. It was not just ghost metro systems, but all kinds of useless infrastructure works like bridges and highways that would lead to nowhere.
I believe there was a journalist at the time who would every year publish a journal keeping track of all the useless works that had been added to the list to make a point about how public money was being wasted.
Another fine example is that one of those useless highways finally found a use recently to temporarily store all the waste from the massive flooding in Wallonia.

[cheapcharliechronicles]

This is fascinating. Belgium has so many cool, old cities and towns. Their architecture is second to none, a mix of the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution Era, a mix I love.