Network Rail's (NR) Fairwater Yard track maintenance facility is a short distance east of Norton Fitzwarren. Due to the high costs of ballast disposal from the site, NR approached the railway about using the triangle site as a commercial recycling site, allowing reclaimed ballast to be used in the local construction industry. After gaining planning permission from Somerset County Council, and approval of a drainage plan from the Environment Agency (conditions of which stipulate that the site must be fully reverted to meadow pasture at the termination of ballast recycling operations) the WSRA came to an agreement with NR to utilise spent ballast and rail from their track renewals programme. NR maintenance trains occasionally run from Fairwater Yard to Norton Fitzwarren to drop off spent materials at the site. A commercial operator sorts the ballast under contract to the WSRA.
