Abstract: A plant for slitting a hot slab, emerging from a continuous casting machine, by means of band sawing machines of which two or more are guided in the serial direction of the slab and are slidably guided transversely to the slab feed direction so that saw changing can be performed in a position outside the rollers of the roller table. Normally, all band sawing machines are in the operating position so that a second, third and so on band sawing machine continues the slitting cut if the saw blade of the preceding machine breaks. The band sawing machines are conveniently provided with one-sided, C-frames, each of which has at least three cantilevered guide rollers for the saw blade, of which one roller is driven.