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The Highley Mining Company ran the colliery successfully for many years, with the workforce increasing to 670 by 1937. As the workings moved under the River Severn towards Alveley, a new shaft was opened at Alveley. Once the Alveley and Highley workings had joined up in 1937, men and equipment were transferred to Alveley, and by 1940 Highley Colliery itself had closed.
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File:LNER 223162 20150307.jpg | "Highley Mining Company" wagon at The Engine House
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==Alveley Colliery==
Coal was brought across the river by a rope-worked tramway across a bridge built to serve the mine, which was later replaced with an aerial ropeway in 1961. This served the washeries and [[Alveley Sidings | sidings]], the latter now being the location of the [[Country Park Halt]].
Production was fairly consistent, reaching full output in 1944 with 275,000 tons raised, with that year's record being 5,547 tons in one week, and a peak of 300,000 tons per year reached in the late 1950s. The colliery became part of the National Coal Bard (NCB) on nationalisation in 1947; at that time employment was 741, rising to over 1,250 in the mid-1950s, and falling to around 700 by the mine's closure. A major expansion was undertaken in the late 1950s and early 1960s, completed in 1962, after large reserves of coal were found to the East of the current workings. These were purported to be enough to last the mine between 50 and 100 years, but a drop in the quality of coal combined with a reduction in demand due to a national over supply forced the closure of the mine in 1969, with the last coal being lifted on the 31st of 31 January.
==Kinlet Colliery==
[[File: Kinlet_OS.jpg|thumb|300px|right| Kinlet Colliery Railway (OS Map extract, 1888-1913 series)]]
Kinlet Colliery (3) was the most southerly of the mines in the Highley area, being located just south of [[Borle Viaduct|Borle Brook]]. When built by the Highley Mining Company, the site had no road access, so the mining leases granted by the Kinlet Estate of William Lacon Childe also made provision for a railway connection. A short branch was taken off the Severn Valley railway around 1900, the route of which can be seen on the extract from the Ordnance Survey Map, 1888-1913 series. The branch was worked by a small 0-4-0ST locomotive named Kinlet. This locomotive was built by Andrew Barclay & Sons as Works No 782 of 1896 and delivered new to the colliery. After closure of Kinlet colliery, the locomotive was sold to H.S. Pitt & Co, Pensnett, where it was renamed 'Peter'.<ref>The Wyre Forest Coalfield, David Poyner and Robert Evans (2000), Tempus Publishing, ISBN 0-7524-17622</ref> It survives as a static exhibit at the Iron Bridge Ironbridge Gorge Museum’s Blists Hill Victorian Town site.
Production at Kinlet Colliery started in the late 1890s but the mine proved difficult to work, due to basalt rock affecting the only seam to produce coal. The colliery employed around 150 men by the turn of the century, rising to around 300 by the start of the First World War, by which time the annual output was about 50,000 tons.
In 1910 the Billingsley Colliery Company was formed to buy the colliery. At the time the Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News reported that the new company was ‘about to lay down a line of railway to connect its mineral property with the Severn Valley Line at Eardington’. In the event, the route of the line joined the existing Kinlet Railway, connecting to the Severn Valley Railway via the same [[Kinlet and Billingsley Sidings signal box | sidings]] as Kinlet Colliery.
In 1915 the colliery was sold to the Highley Mining Company. Mining was nationalised The government increased its control over mines and mineral resources during the First World War and while under government control, wages, hours and safety improved. <ref>[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/mines-mining/ 'Mines and mining', The National Archives]</ref> By 1921 around 250 were employed at Billingsley. Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s decision to return the mines to their original owners in 1921, with the likely reversal of these benefits, brought about a miners’ strike. During that strike, Billingsley Colliery closed.
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