Terre Rouge, Luxembourg

Terre Rouge is part of a once vast steel factory in Luxembourg. Nowadays there is little left of the once behemoth site. The name means “Red Earth”, a reference to the iron ore stained ground typical of this area.

Unfortunately the site has now been completely demolished. Only a few buildings remained during our visit. We visited Terre Rouge during the spring of 2017.

History of this industrial area

Due to the geology and topography of the region, the iron ore seam here is very shallow. In fact the iron ore crops out at the surface in some locations. This made extraction very easy, and the town built Terre Rouge to exploit this resource.

Historical records suggest that iron ore mining first occurred here in 1830s. As Terre Rouge iron works first opened in the 1870s, several other iron works opened up around the same time. A decade after opening the site underwent a major upgrade, and began to produce steel. The steel industry boomed and migrant workers fled to the area. In the mid-1970s steel production was at its peak.

Decline and closure of the steel industry

The economic bubble burst in the late 1970s, when the steel industries collapsed suddenly. At this time most of the accessible ore has been mined. What was left was deemed “not economically viable” to recover. One by one the mines and steel plants closed. The mighty blast furnaces of Terre Rouge closed down in the 1970s. The dismantled machinery was sold to emerging economies overseas, where they likely remain in use today.

Visiting the Terre Rouge Iron Ore Silos

During our visit, we photographed the immense iron ore silos. Iron ore would be transported via the hoppers and a system of conveyor belts. This site acted as a transfer mechanism between the adjacent iron ore mine and the blast furnaces.