West Midlands Industrial Steam in Colour Part 2

As in the sister book of non-National Coal Board industrial locomotives, all the photographs in this volume were taken in the West Midlands area as it was considered to be in the 1960s. This covered a wider area than the West Midlands region as it is to be found today and included the present West Midlands region around Birmingham and Coventry, the 'Black Country' parts of Staffordshire and Worcestershire and the county of Warwickshire. Collieries in this region were at the time divided into two NCB areas: Cannock Chase (Area 2) and Warwickshire (Area 4). These collieries had been nationalised on what was termed 'Vesting Day': 1 January 1947. The considerable industry in this area depended greatly on coal either directly delivered to the factories or, more often by that time, indirectly in the form of electricity or gas generated and produced from coal.