LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Nuneaton

Forge Mills Station: mrforg1056

Now named Coleshill, the station is now dominated by the West Midlands Gas Company's Lurgi Gas Plant. Whilst the goods yard's siding is still apparent on the left, other turnouts on the down line indicate that there were other sidings too at the station. Vic Smith writes 'the sidings on the right joining the down line come from Hams Hall. Trains which were on the block between Water Orton and Washwood Heath on the down goods line, were routed into Hams Hall from Whitacre until there was room at Water Orton on the goods line'. The plant in the background is the WMGB Lurgi Gasification Plant. It used a locally sourced coal from Kingsbury Colliery to produce gas at high pressure and supplied a low-toxicity gas to a high-pressure grid system for the West Midlands Gas Board. It was one of two plants built in Britain, the other being Westfield which used a low-grade coal from an adjacent Westfield open-cast coal mine to service a high-pressure grid system in Fife and central areas of Scotland. Both plants were conventional dry-ash Lurgi gasification plants, and they were in operation for approximately 10 years. The process may have gone on to provide a greater part of Britain's gas supply, but decisions had been made to switch to natural gas, reinforced by the discovery of the North Sea gas fields.

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