Until the late 1970s, there were numerous coal mines in Wallonia, southern Belgium, and a thriving steel industry. Until the early 1960s, these locomotives, built in Belgium, brought the coal to the blast furnaces and steel mills in the immediate vicinity and brought finished products to the marshalling yards for further transport. They also transported the debris excavated from the mines to the nearby slag heaps. They were working animals that rode day and night. It was a very polluted area and certainly not the most pleasant place to live. In the 1980s, the coal mines closed and most factories disappeared. Image size: 260 x 360 mm.