Explore #8 of ‘The Royal Variety Tour’
The final explore of our packed weekend was this mammoth derelict power plant, nestled in the middle of the industrial heartland of Charleroi. The whole area is a fascinating mix of long and recently disused and still-live power plants, cooling towers, and factories. This one was used to power a huge local factory, before being decommissioned and usurped by a more modern and efficient replacement.
Our Explore
I love exploring industrial locations such as this, so it was a perfect way to round off a great weekend of 8 out of 8 successful explores in top company – thanks guys, let’s do it again soon!
As always, click on a photo to VIEW LARGE
We started off in the huge boiler house section of the plant…
After a bit of searching we found our way into the main event: the vast turbine hall… it was another one of those “wow!” moments…
The control room at the end of the hall was still in pristine condition…
The powerplant was expanded and modernised in a number of phases, and as a result the hall housed turbines in varying sizes and designs from different eras – this was the most recent edition: an Escher Wyss model.
An small control station overlooking the turbine hall…
Looking out over the huge hall (this really needs to be viewed LARGE 😉 )…
Yet another control panel…
On the basement level, down in pipey grimey heaven!
I could have happily stayed there all day, but after a few hours it was time to head back outside for a quick picnic lunch by the car and then head for the Eurotunnel and back to the day jobs…
Thanks for stopping in.
Adam X
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