Quarry duo on the rails
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• Two quarry firms are setting up a rail freight service in the West Country which they hope will attract business from other transport operators and producers.
ARC Southern and Foster Yeoman are launching the operation early next year to carry an annual seven million tonnes of their own materials from their quarries in Somerset to the South-East. But the aggregates producers, which have an equal shareholding in Mendip Rail, are planning to bid for freight from firms including National Power, Powergen and British Coal.
Mendip Rail's
I.
main aim is to L cut the aggregates firms' £25m rail costs by sharing their rail assets. Annual savings of Lim could be made by sharing the fleet of nine locomotives and 640 rail ARC: rail venture with Foster Yeoman.
wagons and eliminating unused capacity, says ARC Southern's operations director Terry Last.
He hopes to win outside work once British Rail is privatised and free access to the rail lines is introduced.
National Power says it welcomes the idea of another rail service. It moves 80% of its 46 million tonnes annual coal requirement by rail but has no plan to increase this proportion.
The success of Mendip Rail will depend on rail track costs. If they are too expensive the South-West work will be put on the road, says Last.