5 May 1835 — Trains begin running on the Brussels–Mechelen line, the first public steam railway on the continent. The Belgian state has planned and built it as the first link in a wider network.
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The coal belt from Mons through Charleroi to Liège gave Belgium a foundation for industry. Coal had been worked there for centuries, and Liège already possessed a metalworking tradition. When British machinery arrived, it entered a region with fuel and people whose skills could be put to new uses.
Why it happened — Coal and old industrial skills. British techniques could take root quickly where several resources met. The Sambre–Meuse valley had mined coal and worked iron since the Middle…
The turn — Cockerill at Seraing, 1817. At Seraing, British knowledge met Belgian resources. John Cockerill, born in Lancashire and trained in his father’s Verviers workshop, secured the…
What it changed — Germany overtakes. By joining markets before political unification, the Zollverein tied smaller German states to Prussia, the largest. Ruhr coal and railway orders…
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