Rail freight loses appeal to entrants
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• Government plans to revolutionise the rail freight industry appear to be running out of steam.
Companies who want to run trains themselves are saying that the financial and political environment is too tough for new entrants and they are losing interest.
Since April 1994 the Govern ment has allowed "open access", giving companies the chance to run rail freight services in competition with British Rail.
So far no-one has offered third-party services; in the ownaccount sector the only operators to run their own trains are Mendip Rail—a joint operation between aggregate companies ARC and Foster Yeoman—and National Power, Rail Management Services, an operator which had planned to run private rail freight trains, now says the number of new entrants is unlikely to increase.
"The initial momentum, if it could be described as that, for new operators to enter the market has been lost," says managing director John Hummel.