17 117 is halted owing to accidents obstacles operations of maintenance or replacement of rolls etc the storage and traversing furnace 27 includes means to take slabs 11 from the feeder roller conveyor 28 transfer those slabs 11 crosswise to the normal direction of feed of the slabs 11 and place those slabs 11 on the removal roller conveyor 29 these means to handle the slabs 11 within the storage and traversing furnace 27 are suitable to displace the slabs 11 transversely to the normal direction of feed of the slabs and are generally of a step by step known type according to the invention these handling means associated with the storage and traversing furnace 27 advantageously work in modest steps of the order of 500 600 mm in displacing the slabs 11 within the storage and traversing furnace 27 these handling means can also work with a greater step substantially equal to the width of the slab 11 in transferring the slab 11 from the feeder roller conveyor 28 and to the removal roller conveyor 29 the purpose of this being to carry out with one single displacement the taking of the slab 11 from the feeder roller conveyor 28 and the delivery of the same 11 to the removal roller conveyor 29 in the lay out of fig6 the feeder 28 and removal 29 roller conveyors are outside the storage and traversing furnace 27 and the introduction of the slab 11 into the storage and.