The biggest gain will come from melding their rail operations, providing shorter routes to the sea from some mines and thus cheaper ways to achieve the blend of ores required by certain customers.
James Ginochio, Toyota's U.S. rail logistics manager, says any haul shorter than 500 miles will almost certainly go by truck, and anything longer than 1, 000 miles by rail.
The pair had different visions, with Watkin, who wanted to build a Channel tunnel rail link to France, seeing the Metropolitan as a mainline railway, while Forbes preferred shorter extensions.