Foster Yeoman
IndustryConstruction
Founded1923
Defunct2006
FateMerged into Aggregate Industries
Headquarters
Marston Bigot
,
United Kingdom
ProductsAggregate
Asphalt
Websitewww.foster-yeoman.co.uk

Foster Yeoman Limited, based near Frome, Somerset, England, was one of Europe's largest independent quarrying and asphalt companies. It was sold to Aggregate Industries in 2006.

History

The company was founded by Foster Yeoman, from Hartlepool, at Dulcote, near Wells, in 1923. He was a former ship owner and had worked in the iron and steel business. Yeoman had served in the First World War and went into quarrying to provide employment for ex-soldiers.

Between the wars Foster Yeoman Limited supplied contractors and local authorities in the South of England, reaching an early peak of prosperity in the 1930s. During the Second World War, the firm supplied materials for the construction of airfields. Most stone was sent away by rail as it is today.

After the war, with Foster Yeoman ailing, business declined and the company came full circle, returning to the £20,000 turnover it had enjoyed in 1923. In 1949, Foster died and his son, John Foster Yeoman, became a managing director at the age of 21. Educated at Monkton Combe School,[1] Millfield and the University of Bristol, he set about turning the company around, despite his youth and inexperience. He employed Ron Torr to redevelop the plant and within four years the company was back in profit.

Dulcote was not the best location and, with an eye to rising costs, competition and the need for future expansion, John Yeoman bought the under-exploited Merehead Quarry at East Cranmore in Somerset in 1958.

Since 1949, the stone had been carried to its destination by lorry, but now Foster Yeoman reverted to rail transport. The Merehead Stone Terminal was established in 1970. From there aggregate was removed by high capacity trains. This innovation was followed by the building of the railhead depot and coating plant at Botley, Hampshire, in 1973. On its 75th anniversary, the company published a colorful pictorial history of the company with a focus on its use of railway transport to move the aggregate.[2]

Foster Yeoman bought the derelict Marston House, a Grade II* listed building,[3] near Frome, in 1984. The mansion dates in part from the early 17th century and has 106 rooms. It was restored over a seven-year period as the company headquarters.

John Foster Yeoman died in 1987. He was succeeded by his widow, Angela Yeoman, OBE, DL. Their son, also John Foster Yeoman, became managing director in 1994 and vice chairman in 2004.

Notable landmarks in the company history have included the supplying of aggregate for the Thames Barrier and the M25 motorway. Foster Yeoman also supplied three million tonnes of rock used to make concrete segments for the English side of the Channel Tunnel.

With its substantial interests in Northern Europe, Foster Yeoman now ran a locomotive on German railways from 1997 to 1999. Its other interests include civil engineering and recycling. In 1997, it acquired RJ Maxwell with its London asphalt works and wharves and now operates a very successful contracting division. Continuation of waterborne transport of aggregates on the Thames Tideway was also ensured by the acquisition of Bennetts Barges, which also carried major components of the London Eye and a decommissioned Concorde aircraft. Glensanda granite also provides all replacement track ballast for railways in the South of England.

Foster Yeoman continues to be one of the major suppliers of coated stone products used for projects as diverse as motorways, airports and tennis courts.

In 2006, after protracted family disagreements, Foster Yeoman was wholly acquired by the Holcim Group and is now part of its Aggregate Industries subsidiary.[4][5]

Quarries

Torr Works (Merehead)

The entrance to Torr Works Quarry

John Yeoman bought the under-exploited Merehead Quarry in 1958. He developed this successfully in association with his chief engineer, Ron Torr, after whom the new quarry was renamed. This second Foster Yeoman quarry became operational in 1964, and was completed with the installation of the Nordberg Primary Crusher in 1970.

In 1985, Torr Works quarry acquired the O & K Mobile Crusher, a five storey high plant which can walk to the current working location, instead of a conventional fixed building which needs to be fed by dumper trucks.

Glensanda

John Yeoman had long been captivated by the idea of the super-quarry to be situated in a remote location from which stone could be exported by sea, which had also been declared as preferred government policy. To this end, and always looking ahead, he bought the Glensanda estate near Oban in Argyll in 1982. A pilot plant was installed (extended in 1996) which extracts granite by the "glory hole" and conveyor belt method, a pioneering development in alternative quarrying technology.

Glensanda went into operation in 1986 when the first shipload of granite left for Houston, Texas, USA. The production director at Glensanda is Kurt Larson, John and Angela Yeoman's son-in-law. Production at the Scottish quarry has now reached six million tonnes a year.

Eighty per cent of Glensanda granite is exported to Europe using Foster Yeoman vessels: the Yeoman Brook, Yeoman Bank, Yeoman Bridge and the Yeoman Bontrup.

Rail operations

Class 08 shunter at the Torr Works Quarry

Foster Yeoman transported the majority of its stone product from Merehead to various distribution points across the UK by trains. During 1923, the company purchased its own fleet of 140 12-ton wagons to take advantage of the fact that the Great Western Railway line ran adjacent to Dulcote Quarry. When the Torr 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 Somerset branch line which joins the main line at Witham. Further expansion was soon needed, with a chord being added between the terminal and the branch line in 1973.[6]

Throughout much of the British Rail era, both shunting and mainline locomotives were provided by the national railway operator. However, in 1972, Foster Yeoman bought the first of several Class 08 shunting locomotive; the company also purchased a General Motors EMD SW1001 switching locomotive in 1980.[7] Foster Yeoman was dissatisfied with the poor reliability achieved by the various locomotives used by British Rail to haul stone trains from the West Country (with availability of the Class 56 locomotives from May 1984 as low as 30%, and only 60% of trains running on time),[8] leading to the firm negotiating 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 it accepted the principle.[9][10]

During 1985, what may in retrospect be viewed as the harbinger of private rail operation in Britain occurred when Foster Yeoman opted to purchase a number of powerful freight locomotives from the American conglomerate General Motors' Electro-Motive Diesel division (GM-EMD), designated Class 59. These were procured to be exclusively used on its mineral trains.[11][12] Although owned and maintained by Foster Yeoman, the Class 59s were manned by British Rail staff. During acceptance trials, on 16 February 1986, locomotive 59001 hauled a train weighing 4639 tonnes – the heaviest load ever hauled by a single non-articulated traction unit. Foster Yeoman's Class 59s proved to be extremely reliable, promptly encouraging other firms, such as the rival quarry company ARC and privatised power generator National Power to also purchase their own fleets of Class 59s to haul their own trains.[13][14] The Class 59 directly led to the Class 66 series of locomotives, which became the standard for freight haulage in the UK.

During 1993, Foster Yeoman and ARC agreed to create a joint venture company, Mendip Rail, under which they combined their locomotives and rolling stock in one streamlined operation and thus created the third largest freight company in the UK.[15] It was particularly active in the southern region, where the former Foster Yeoman terminals at Eastleigh and Botley are present, as well as delivering aggregates for construction work on various major projects, including the Thames Barrier, Second Severn Crossing, Channel Tunnel, and Heathrow Terminal 5.[16][17]

References

  1. ↑ "Wells Journal". 19 June 1986.
  2. ↑ Foster Yeoman The Rail Story 75 Years of Aggregate By Rail, by Colin J. Marsden (1998)(ISBN 1901419037).
  3. ↑ "Marston House". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 2 September 2007.
  4. ↑ "Foster Yeoman founding family agrees £300m Swiss takeover" The Times (subscription required)
  5. ↑ Foster Yeoman sells out for £300m Rail issue 545 2 August 2006 page 17
  6. ↑ Searl, Hugh; Jacob, Robin (1998). Foster Yeoman – The Rail Album: 1923-1998. Frome: Foster Yeoman Ltd. pp. 3–21. ISBN 0-948448-12-1.
  7. ↑ Searl & Jacob 1998, pp. 23–27.
  8. ↑ "Class 59". Southern E-Group. 25 February 2006. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
  9. ↑ "25 Years of the GM Revolution". Rail Express. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 21 November 2010.
  10. ↑ "History — East Mendip Quarries". British Geological Survey. Retrieved 21 November 2010.
  11. ↑ Allen, Geoffrey Freeman (1987). The Yeoman 59s. London: Jane's Transport Press. pp. 5–9. ISBN 0-7106-0452-1.
  12. ↑ Marsden, Colin J. (October–November 2008). "The Class 59s". Modern Locomotives Illustrated. No. 173. Stamford: Key Publishing. pp. 7–9. ISSN 1756-8188.
  13. ↑ "The Track Record of Heavy Haul Power EMD General Motors Locomotives over Ten Years". Erfurt: Heavy Haul Power International. Archived from the original on 8 October 2007. Retrieved 10 February 2023.
  14. ↑ Marsden, Colin J. (2019). Rolling Stock Review. Stamford: Key Publishing. pp. 30–31. ISBN 978-1-91220-598-1.
  15. ↑ Searl & Jacob 1998, p. 3.
  16. ↑ Searl & Jacob 1998, pp. 78–87.
  17. ↑ "History – East Mendip Quarries". British Geological Survey. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.