Still work needs to be done but looks like SD has done a real decent job bringing this former weed choked Milwaukee Branch back from the dead. Given the Western portion that enters Rapid City, SD is out of operation. The line was in far worse shape when the Milwaukee Road was sold to Soo Line.
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Do they eventually hope to reextend to Rapid City? Yes, thatās a lot of mileage, but the roadbed is still there, and Rapid City looks like it generates a pretty decent car count from a number of industries. And it looks like the rails are still in place to about Kadoka, so itās only about ~100 milesā¦
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OK, so here is the update as far as I know. WATCO bought the line from the state and the name will be changed soon to something else. As part of the purchase agreement WATCO committed to I think x $million a year dedicated to upgrading the track more. SD also to kick in money in future track upgrades. I believe that is only to operate the line to the current end of line, they did not say much about extending but WSOR has extended on bare roadbed before so I would not rule it out if new clients build and ask for them specifically. There is always hope I guess.
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I dunno. Iām and hour east of Mitchell and have driven past that line 100 times. Once you get west of the Missouri River, the land changes from corn and bean fields to wheat and cattle grazing. The people and the potential rail traffic thins out considerably. Iād say the end of the line will stay where itās at and grain will be trucked to there.
The line will never extend to Rapid City for two reasons. The last couple miles of ROW into town have been covered by urban growth. Rapid City really doesnāt have a lot of rail traffic. What is there, like wood pulp and bentonite from the northern Black Hills and Colony Wyoming is adequetly hauled by the existing Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern Railroad.
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Is Kadoka the present end of service?
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I think the end of the line is at Kennebec, about 85 miles east of Kadoka. Thereās a grain load-out there.
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While Kadoka is the official west end of the line, the track is paved over by US 83 near Vivian. The last revenue customer is the shuttle grain train facility at Presho. Kennebec and Kimball are the other shuttle grain train facilities west of Mitchell.
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Murphy,
I donāt understand this. Evidently the track is out of service from Mitchell to Rapid City and yet the RC,P&E is providing local rail freight service in the vicinity of Rapid City? Is that correct?
Then how is the RC,P&E connecting to the outside rail system? Is there another line into Rapid City?
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Murphy,
I guess I already found the answer to my question here. I found an online State Rail map that indicates that the former C&NW line to R.C. is active but the former MILW is only active to Kadoka. That map might already be out of date since a couple of you have suggested itās not active that far. Mark Meyer said itās paved over on U.S. 83
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The RCPE is actually a fairly decent sized railroad (under G&W) spanning 3 states with a number of interchange connections.
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The Official S.D. State Rail map shows the west end of the former Milwaukee line ārailbankedā into Rapid City. The fact that they show that on theeir map seems to suggest that they mightāve had a plan for it at one time.
But with the former C&NW line in operation by the RCP&E there is almost certainly insufficient demand for two lines to R.C. Perhaps if some big industry would locate along there but that seems unlikely to happen.
Remember, a few years ago, The CPR planned to revive one of those lines to send their reach into the coal fields in Wyoming. I think maybe it was a shortline that started this (D&M maybe) then the CPR took over. There was a big fuss over it. The people of Rochester, MN raised hell over the possibility of coal trains rumbling through town. There was litigation filed to try and kill the plan.
They fought so hard to stop it that the CPR finally just gave up. And now with āclimate changeā anxiety growing among us, the future of Powder River coal looks bleak.
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Looking on-line, it seems the DM&E was the āshortlineā planning to build into the Powder River Basin, and while they got approvals (I recall this saga pretty well, following it at the time), financing became the hold-up - such that CP eventually brought them out. Then, in 2014, CP sold off much of the DM&E lines to G&W which formedā¦the RCPE!
Iām not seeing much of a call for increased capacity into the Powder River basin at this time, but who knowsā¦
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The Dakota southern ends at Presho as Mark Meyer mentioned above. From there to Kadoka itās just an old, light weight, rusting, jointed-rail line in the weeds. Look at Google maps. As the line runs west from about the rapid City Regional airport into Rapid City, a lot of the ROW has been lost to highways, streets and buildings.
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It was lack of financing that stopped the DM&E line into the Powder River. Letās be honest, itās a good thing i
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Almost entirely not true.
There is pretty much no actual evidence that CP bought the DM&E to access the Powder River Basin. At the announcement in 2007, CP stated that any exploration of whether to build into the Powder River Basin āwas at least a year off.ā By 2012, CP took a $180 million write-off on the all the associated costs (including those from the DM&E) associated with this āproposal.ā
Of course, the argument could be made that the Great Recession of 2008 harpooned any thoughts of expansion, but the general consensus is that CP acquired the DM&E and subsidiary Iowa, Chicago, and Eastern for the latterās routes, including line from River Jct. (La Crosse) and Chicago to Kansas City. Kansas City was not only the number 2 railroad location in the country, it also offered a direct connection to KCS. And the recent announcement of CPās desire to purchase KCS tends to verify such a long-term strategy.
The City of Rochester, Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic did fight the proposed expansion in the Powder River Basin, but Fred is dead wrong stating āthey fought so hard to stop it that the CPR finally just gave up.ā The most-heated conflicts were between Mayo and the DM&E, but when the sale of the railroad to the CP was in the works,
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Nitpick: RCP&E actually serves four states: Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Minnesota. Wyoming, Nebraska, and Minnesota all have important trackage, but itās mostly a South Dakota show.
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Mark,
Your comments regarding my post are somewhat miscontrued or unfair. You are correct that it was the DM&E trying to expand into Powder River. You see, my details were fuzzy on this subject 'cause I was partly going by memory. There were several Wall Street Journal articles about the fight but you are correct, it was the City of Rochester vs DM&E, not CPR.
Sorry about that, I should have gone back and reviewed that before I posted this. However, I do recall reading in the WSJ that after the CPR bought the DM&E, there was speculation that they would still continue with the Powder River Project. But that never came to pass so my statement that āCPR finally gave upā was not completly untrue. Just inaccurate.
You are a real stickler for details, Mark, but thatās not necessarily a bad thing. Thanks for the correction.
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You know, I just happened to reread the short news article in the most recent issue of TRAINS yesterday and the way thatās worded, it does sound like they plan to reactivate the entire line from Kadoka to Rapid City. I am left wondering what the justification for that is. Did they get a big wad of āstimulusā transportation funds that theyāre not sure what to do with?
Or, more likely, was the TRAINS article either inaccurate or just plain wrong. If that were the case, then TRAINS should issue a correction in a future issue.
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Murphy,
I tried flying over the line on Google Earth between Murphy and R.C. and the rails are definetly gone. One Google Earth āStreet Viewā showed the rails still intact but the image was probably out of date.
However, I was having trouble seeing where the right of way has been covered over with buildings and highways. It looks like the roadbed is still there although all grade crossings have been removed (along with the rails). I followed into the southeastern side of R.C. where it appeared to join another rail line with rails intact.
Itās always hard for me to tell how old these satellite images are so you could very well be right and new buildings have indeed been built on the ROW. But the Official State Rail map indicates that it is still there and ārail bankedā.
Hereās the map I was looking at if you havenāt seen it. You really need to zoom in to read it:
https://dot.sd.gov/media/documents/railmap.pdf
The question comes up, why would they rebuild this line IF thatās even what they intend to do? I can think of a number of lines Iād like to see rebuilt if the opportunity should ever arise. Iād put this one pretty far down near the bottom of my list.
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As I recall, CP bought DM&E for a set price, with an agreement that if CP ever did go forward with the PRB coal plan, they would pay DME entities another bucket of money. I felt this was sort of a face-saving move for DM&E. The reason DM&E sold to CP was because the PRB coal line was not going anywhere.
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