Mendip Rail Ltd is an independentfreight operating railway company in Great Britain. It is a joint venture composed of the rail-operation divisions ofAggregate Industries (formerlyFoster Yeoman) andHanson Aggregates (previously ARC).
The company operatesaggregate trains from thequarries of the Mendip Hills in South-West England, to London and South-East England. The Foster Yeoman quarries are atTorr Works andDulcote Quarry, while Hanson has plants atBatts Combe Quarry andWhatley Quarry.
The company operates fourClass 59/0diesel locomotives owned by Aggregate Industries and fourClass 59/1 locomotives owned by Hanson. In addition, twoSW1001 Switchers are owned and operated at Whatley and Merehead quarries. It owns Merehead Traction Maintenance Depot (Merehead TMD) where the eight locomotives are allocated. They can also be seen atHither Green TMD orEastleigh Works where they receive heavy maintenance.
Foster Yeoman purchased its own fleet of 140 12-ton wagons in 1923, to take advantage of the fact that theGreat Western Railway line ran adjacent toDulcote Quarry. When theTorr Works opened in the 1960s, a rail terminal – named Merehead after the old quarry – was constructed to support the new quarry and was opened in August 1970, served by a spur from the East Somersetbranch line which joins the main line atWitham. Further expansion was soon needed, with a chord being added between the terminal and the branch line in 1973.[1]
British Railshunting and mainline locomotives were used initially, but in 1972 Foster Yeoman bought the first of severalClass 08 shunting engines. The company also has aGeneral MotorsEMD SW1001 switching locomotive which was purchased in 1980.[2]
As a result of poor reliability of the various locomotives used by British Rail to haul stone trains from the West Country (with availability of theClass 56 locomotives from May 1984 as low as 30%, and only 60% of trains running on time),[3] Foster Yeoman began negotiations with British Rail to improve service. Having already supplied its own wagons (with a reliability level of 96%) Foster Yeoman suggested to British Rail that it could operate its own locomotives, which would be the first privately owned engines to run on British rail tracks. British Rail's problem was the hard tie-in and control of the rail unions, but nevertheless BR accepted the principle.[4][5]
Foster Yeoman issued a tender document which requested 95% reliability.[6]General Motors' bid was ultimately successful, in particular because their proposed design, derived from theEMD SD40-2, was equipped with the well-provenSuper Series creep control, which allows superior traction at very low speeds. This, it was found, would enable a single locomotive to haul Foster Yeoman's 4,300 tonne stone trains, whilst twoClass 56 orClass 58 engines would be needed to move the same load. This enabled Foster Yeoman to reduce its requirement from the original six locomotives to four.[6]
The contract with General Motors was signed in November 1984 and the new locomotives, built at the GM plant inLa Grange, Illinois, were shipped across the Atlantic in January 1986.[7] The JT26CW-SS,[8] newly designated asBritish Rail Class 59/0, had a cab layout taken from theClass 58, to make driver assimilation easier, and to meet the Britishloading gauge a considerable amount of redesign work and various compromises were required from the original GM prototype.[4] Once in the United Kingdom, further tests were undertaken before Foster Yeoman's new locomotives entered service in February 1986.[3] They were officially named in a ceremony at Merehead on 28 June 1986.[9]
The Class 59s delivered 99% reliability, leading Foster Yeoman to order a fifth engine in 1988.[10] In their first ten years of operation the five locomotives between them hauled over 50 million tonnes of aggregates away from Merehead.
The four former-Yeoman locomotives still operated by Mendip Rail are:
59003Yeoman Highlander was exported toGermany in 1997,[11] renumbered as 259 003, and operated by Yeoman/Deutsche Bahn (DB), pulling stone trains. It has since been sold on to Heavy Haul Power International where it is still working on coal trains and pulls the highest train weight of any locomotive presently in Germany.[12] On 19 August 2014,GB Railfreight (GBRF) confirmed it had purchased 59003 and planned to return it to the UK to haul GBRF freight trains by the end of 2014.[13]
On 26 May 1991Kenneth J Painter (59005) (with assistance fromYeoman Endeavour) set the European haulage record, with a stone train weighing 11,982 tonnes and 5,415 feet (1,650 m) long. However, the so-called 'mega train' experiment was not fully successful, as a coupling in the centre of the train broke.[14]
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The four Class 59/1 locomotives owned byHanson Aggregates (parent company of the former owner ARC) are similar to the Class 59/0 locomotives of Foster Yeoman and were built by General Motors Diesel Division at itsLondon, Ontario plant in 1990. The main differences are a revised layout for the headlights and marker lights, and modifications to the suspension to permit the maximum speed to be increased to 75 mph (121 km/h) (if required in the future) with the fitting ofyaw dampers.
The four Hanson locomotives operated by Mendip Rail are:
Both Foster Yeoman and ARC operated shunting locomotives at their quarries which are managed by Mendip Rail. Forster Yeoman originally used second handBritish Rail Class 08s but later bought anEMD SW1001, a precursor to their buying the fleet of Class 59s. ARC operated modernThomas Hill Vanguard and Steelman shunters. After Mendip Rail was established, some locomotives have been moved between the two quarries and also the Foster Yeoman terminal atIsle of Grain.[15]
| Number | Name | Type | Built | In service | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Dulcote | Class 08 | 1952 | 1972-1982 | BR D3002, now preserved on thePlym Valley Railway[16][15] |
| 22 | Merehead | Class 08 | 1952 | 1973-1982 | BR D3003, later displayed atWanstrow but cut up in 1991[16][15] |
| 33 | Mendip | Class 08 | 1953 | 1975-2008 | BR 08032, now preserved on theWatercress Line[16][15] |
| 44 | Western Yeoman II | SW1001 | 1980 | 1980- | |
| 55 | Class 08 | 1959 | 1989- | BR 08650[17][15] | |
| 66 | Class 08 | 1959 | 1993- | BR 08652[17][15] | |
| 77 | Pride of Whatley | Steelman[15] | 1987 | ?- | |
| 88 | Vanguard[15] | ? | ?- | ||
| 120 | Kenneth John Whitcombe[18] | SW1001 | ? | ?- |
To better manage their fleet availability and scale needs,Hanson ARC andFoster Yeoman founded Mendip Rail in 1993.[19] The assets are still owned by the parent companies and the staff are seconded to Mendip Rail.
The eight locomotives display four different liveries:
Mendip Rail'sclass 59s work services between various destinations which have changed over time according to demand and specific contracts. They have worked regularly over southern railway tracks, for example to the former Foster Yeoman terminals atEastleigh andBotley, as well as delivering aggregates for construction work on theThames Barrier,Second Severn Crossing,Channel Tunnel and most recentlyHeathrow Terminal 5, which required 3 million tonnes of stone.[20][21]
As of 2010[update], Mendip Rail hauled about 4.5 million tonnes of stone from Torr Works each year, and about 2.5 million tonnes from Whatley Quarry.[21]
Services are operated in partnership withFreightliner, using Freightliner's fourteen Class 59 locomotives, comprising 59/0 (four), 59/1 (four) and 59/2 (a fleet of six built forNational Power in 1994 and 1995). The operations are also supported with around ten Class 66s.[citation needed] The class 59 locomotives, along with the Mendip Rail contract, were handed over fromDB Cargo on 3 November 2019.[citation needed]
While working the6A20Whatley Quarry toActon (WestLondon) stone train, 59103Village ofMells and the first ten hopper wagonsderailed at 23:20 on 12 September 2000 betweenGreat Elm Tunnel and Bedlam Tunnel on the single track branch line to the Hanson Quarry at Whatley.[4] The locomotive and the first two hoppers rolled, and 59103 came to rest on the parapet of a small bridge on the driver's side (left by direction of travel) with the trailingbogie partially torn off by the following hopper car. The locomotive was pulled upright on 19 September 2000 and removed to Whatley Quarry where an initial assessment of the damage was made and repairs made to make the locomotive safe for removal by road.
Shortly before 17:30[22] on 6 October 2008[23]: 4 a mainline engine, which had earlier departed theWhatley Quarry depot, was hit from behind by a runaway train on the quarry branch line at Bedlam, nearGreat Elm.[22]
The runaway train consisted of ashunter hauling sixteen loaded stone wagons, weighing a total of 1,700 tonnes.[23]: 1 It had been engaged inmarshalling duties with another train at the quarrysidings when the train's main airbrake handle suffered a mechanical failure. The crew had attempted to stop the train by applying the shunter's direct air brake, but this was negated by themomentum of the moving wagons. The shunter's Driver's Safety Device (deadman's pedal) was disabled by a feature that let the driver leave his seat to monitor the train's passage as long as the direct air brake was applied. Had that brake been released and the deadman's pedal been functional, the train's main air brakes would have applied automatically and stopped the train.Trap points which might have derailed the train before it joined the branch line had not been reset after the mainline train departed.[23]
While it had been travelling less than 6.5 km/h (4 mph)[23]: 1 at the time of the brake failure, the runaway accelerated down a gradient to a speed of 41 km/h (25.5 mph)[23]: 1 by the time it collided with the mainline locomotive (which was going 16 km/h (10 mph)[23]: 1 in the same direction), over 1.5 kilometres (1 mi)[23]: 1 down the line. The shunter's crew had abandoned the locomotive before impact and there were no serious injuries as a result.[23]: 1
The shunter, which by the time of impact was already damaged after passing a tunnel too low for it, was derailed, as were the first five stone wagons; four of those completely left the branch line and travelled down a steep embankment. The shunter suffered significant but repairable damage, and there was only minor damage to the mainline locomotive. A section of track was completely destroyed.[23]: 2
TheRail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) reviewed the accident and decided that it did not warrant undertaking a full investigation. The RAIB did recommend that an additional "brake of last resort" be fitted to the shunter and to similar industrial locomotives. The RAIB also noted the need to consider the use of self-restoring trap points for the quarry sidings.[23]: 4
At approximately 02:40 the two locomotives hauling the 7A91 Merehead Quarry to Acton Terminal Complex train derailed at East Somerset Junction betweenWestbury andCastle Cary.[24]
At 17:50, 7Z15, the 1705 Merehead Quarry to Acton Terminal Complex train, derailed at East Somerset Junction between Westbury and Castle Cary.[25]Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) inspectors deployed within the hour.[26]