Franco-Belge
The Société Franco-Belge was a Franco-Belgian engineering firm that specialised in railway equipment.
In 1859, Charles Evrard acquired Parmentier Freres et Cie. based in La Croyère, (La Louvière, Belgium) and merged it with the Ateliers Charles Evrard (of Brussels, Belgium) to form the Compagnie Belge pour la Construction de Machines et de Matériels de Chemins de Fer (1862).
In 1881, the plant in Brussels was closed and the factory's equipment was transferred. A new company, the Société Anonyme Franco-Belge pour la Construction de Machines et de Matériel de Chemins de Fer, was created in 1881. In 1882 a new factory was established in Raismes in the north of France, allowing the company to circumvent protectionism in the French market; initially the factory at Raismes in France assembled machines using components manufactured across the border in Belgium. (This factory would eventually be acquired by Alstom).
In 1911, the company was renamed Société Franco Belge de Matérial de Chemins de Fer.
Up to 1914, the company board was dominated by Belgians; after 1914, the company became majority owned by French interests.
In 1927 the French and Belgian activities were separated into independent companies, with the Croyère site forming "Société Anglo-Franco-Belge" (SAFB or AFB), which received British investment. The French operations of the company remained as "Franco-Belge".
In 1939, SAFB two metalworking factories were absorbed, in Seneffe and Godarville (Chapelle-lez-Herlaimont), both in Hainaut, Belgium.
Post war the company experienced financial problems, in part due to loss of overseas export customers to American companies. In the 1950s, the company manufactured Electro-Motive Diesel engined diesel locomotives.
In 1964, the company merged with the road and rail vehicle manufacturing company S.A. des Ateliers Germain based in Monceau-sur-Sambre to form the Etablissements Germain-Anglo.
In February 1968, the company Germain-Anglo ceased operation.
In 1969, the site of the plant in La Croyère was acquired by developer Société Frabelmar for a hypermarket site.
Note: Amongst other production in the 1930s, the Franco-Belge in Raismes manufactured 4-6-2+2-6-4 high speed Garratt' locomotives for Algeria, designed by Beyer, Peacock and Co. and also carriages for an imperial train built for Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. The association as sub-contractor to Beyer, Peacock & Co continued to the 1950s.
The above information is condensed from the Wikipedia entry, accessed 17 July 2025.