Mendip Rail pulls out of third-party rail haulage • Foster
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Yeoman and ARC have dropped plans to compete in the third-party rail haulage market for aggregates.
Mendip Rail, the joint venture company, starts operating on 1 April but it will provide rail services only to the two aggregates producers and not to any other companies.
Mendip had been hailed as a pioneering service set up to compete with British Rail before and after privatisation. It was to develop a "broad range of rail freight business with other potential rail users in many different industries".
Robin Gisby, the founder of failed joint venture rail freight company Charterail who had been appointed chief executive, has left Mendip Rail and taken another job in the engineering industry. The decision to abandon thirdparty business follows a reassessment of the use of the diesel locomotives and 600 freight wagons by Foster Yeoman and ARC. Operations director at ARC Terry Last says: "We want to maximise our assets for ourselves first."