Report - Charleroi Metro line 5 (Châtelet branch) - June 2023 /2024

[Kennex418]

History​

The Charleroi metro, or premetro given that it features light rail trams running on heavy rail infrastructure, is a strange beast, largely as a result of the quirks of Belgium politics what with Belgium essentially being composed of 2 diametrically opposed regions - Flanders (the dutch speaking northern half), and Wallonia (the French speaking southern half) and a supposedly neutral, bilingual 3rd region around Brussels. Planning for the Charleroi Metro began in the 1960s during a period in Belgian Politics known as “Wafelijzerpolitiek“ which translates as “waffle-iron politics” – the idea that a waffle-iron leaves an identical impression on both sides of waffle. So according to the rules of waffle-iron politics if a project was funded in Flanders, a similar project also had to be funded in Wallonia with equal investment , regardless of the actual need. The idea behind Waffle iron politics was to keep both regions happy and avoid major disagreements between Flanders and Wallonia by ensuring everything was "fair", at a time when all the decsions were made in Brussels - nowadays most decisions are devolved directly to the regions, who have little to do with eachother.

So when the Belgium government in the 1960s decided to make a huge investment building 5 new metro systems there was naturally one for the supposedly neutral, billingual Brussels (1970s pop. 1,568,000) and then 2 for each of Flanders and Wallonia.
In Flanders metro systems were planned for Antwerp (1970s pop. 855,000) and Ghent (1970s pop. 358,000)
In Wallonia metro systems were planned for Liege (1970s pop. 619,000) and Charleroi (1970s pop. 421,000)

However when the cities of Liege and Ghent pulled out of the plan their money was reallocated under the waffel-iron policy, with Charleroi recieving the Liege funds and Antwerp recieving Ghents share of the funds. This now led to the bonkers situation whereby Charleroi recieved enough money to build a metro for over a million people despite its population being less than half that.

So accordingly plans were drawn up and approved for Charleroi to build a 52km long network consisting of 8 metro lines radiating from a central loop Downtown

The 1960s plans for the Charleroi metro

Things would take a turn for the worst when the global steel market collapsed taking a fatal blow to Charleroi's steel industry and resulting in a rapid economic and social decline for the city along with a huge population decline. Construction still went ahead on the first 4 lines. Then as a result of political reforms in the 1980s spelling the end of the waffel-iron policy, more power was devolved to the regions meaning that Wallonia now had full control over the money originally allocated to the Charleroi metro project, and with the backdrop of the huge population and economic decline of the 1970s, Wallonia decided to stop any further funding of the metro, reallocating the funds to other more pressing priorities so only the first metro line out to Anderlues was opened. Metro line 3 out to Gilly in the east lay dormant from 1985 till 1992 whilst metro line 3 up to the northern suburbs was eventually opened in 2013 despite half the branch being use for over 30 years to allow trams to reach the Jumet depot (out of service of course).

What was actually built

This does of course leave us with one further line - The partially completed but never opened Line M5 out to the eastern suburbs of Châtelet, which is the object for todays post. In total 8 Stations were planned for line M5 with the first 4 stations (Neuville, Chet, Pensée, Centenaire) from the downtown loop fully completed in 1986 with working escalators and platforms and tracks with working overhead electrification, with the remaining 4 stations partially completed but with no tracks. This leaves us with the hugely wasteful situation of 4 fully completed but never opened metro stations which have been left to rot and decline for the last 38 years.

When the metro was planned, control of the network was split between 2 different transport bodies who couldn't agree on which side to run their trams on hence this odd crossover to allow a switch from right hand running on Line M5 (and line M4) to left hand running on the rest of the system. Such a typically belgian conundrum!

However in 2021 Charleroi recieved €60 million euros from The EU to renovate and complete the Chatelet line 5 of the metro in conjunction with a planned new hospital at Les Viviers with construction starting in June 2023, with an aim to finally open Line M5 in 2027, 41 years after the first half of the line was fully completed.

The Explore​

I first visited Charleroi in June of 2023 and had a pleasant solo mooch round 2 of the abandoned stations - Chet and Pensée . I had also intended to visit Neuville but was put off by a homeless encampment surrounding the entrance to the station at that time. Both stations were very easy to access and despite reconstruction works having just commenced at the time of my visit there was nobody on site and there had been no visible alteration to the stations. It was pretty amazing to see that Chet had retained its original station entrance sign after 38 years of abandonment.

Then finding myself in Belgium again in June 2024 i took the opportunity to pop down to Charleroi and re-visit Pensée and also visit Centenaire which was another station i hadn't visited in 2023.
I had timed it almost perfectly as i turned up to Pensee station just as the construction workers were literally locking up the site, so after watching their van drive away, i waited about 10 minutes before diving in. It was quite interesting to see the changes that had occured since my previous visit in 2023, with the station entrance on the bridge and escalators at Pensée removed, with evidence of lift shafts being put into place however on platform level not much had changed.
Centenaire station being underground was harder to get decent photos of with my phone and i got the impression that more of the station had been stripped back here in preparation for renovation prior to reopening in 2027. I continued through the tunnel to the point where the tracks abruptly end and was planning on checking out the partially built station Champeau but on nearing the site i saw construction workers busy on the bridge directly before the station so gave that a miss.

Chet (2023)​

Pensée

2023 Photos​

2024 Photos​

Centenaire (2024)

The stairs to nowhere at Centenaire would have at one point led up to a surface level building on the street which was demolished in around 2010, meanwhile the escalators down to the platform had sadly been stripped out by the time of my visit

Champeau Station in the distance, and with the end of the tracks, this marks the end of this rather long report

Thanks for reading ​