The Sisseton Milbank Railroad (Reporting Mark SMRR ) is a railroad subsidiary of the Twin Cities and Western Railroad that operates between its namesake, the cities of Sisseton and Milbank in South Dakota .
7-610: The Sisseton Milbank Railroad operates former Dakota Rail trackage, which is a former Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad branchline. The railroad mostly ships grain from the elevator in Sisseton to Milbank to be shipped out on the BNSF or Twin Cities and Western Railroad line. They also store rail cars on this line when grain shipments are not needed. Currently the railroad ships about 2,500,000 bushels of grain per year, or
14-554: A little over 500 carloads annually. Work on the rail bridge over Lake Farley, the longest structure on the railroad, received a nearly $ 1.7 million grant to replace the structure. The work was completed in the fall of 2022. In the South Dakota state budget proposed by governor Kristi Noem in December 2022, $ 6,250,000 was proposed as the state's matching contribution to a proposed $ 24,000,000 Federal Government grant to rebuild
21-690: The Sisseton Southern Railway taking over. The company went bankrupt in 1988 but emerged from bankruptcy in 1990 with new owners. RailAmerica , a short-line railroad holding company, acquired Dakota Rail in 1995 for $ 1.5 million. RailAmerica abandoned the Hutch Spur in 2001 and sold the right-of-way to the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority, Carver County , and McLeod County . The Dakota Rail Regional Trail now runs over part of
28-773: The Wayzata Subdivision in Wayzata and ends in Hutchinson, Minnesota . Local efforts to save the line were led by Ancher Nelsen , a former U.S. Representative. Dakota Rail leased the line from the Burlington for $ 100/year, with an option to buy for $ 5 million after five years. Dakota Rail's two lines were not geographically contiguous. Dakota Rail operation of the Sisseton Branch ended in July 1987, with
35-622: The Sisseton Line Associations and SLA Property Management, purchased the line for $ 660,000. Dakota Rail spent more than $ 3 million rehabilitating the line. Dakota Rail expanded into neighboring Minnesota in 1985 after the Burlington Northern Railroad announced plans to abandon its Hutchinson Subdivision (more commonly known as the Hutch Spur), a 44-mile (71 km) line that branches off
42-571: The railroad, upgrading from lightweight 75 lb rail rolled as far back as 1884, capable of train speeds of only 3 to 5 miles per hour, with a weight limit of 263,000 lbs, and a limit of 13 loaded rail cars. This United States rail–related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Dakota Rail Dakota Rail, Inc. ( reporting mark DAKR ) was a short-line railroad which operated in South Dakota and Minnesota . It operated from 1982 until 2001. From 1995 onward it
49-565: Was a subsidiary of RailAmerica . Dakota Rail was founded in 1982 to operate the Sisseton Branch , a 38-mile (61 km) railway line between Sisseton, South Dakota , and Milbank, South Dakota , owned by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific (Milwaukee Road). The Milwaukee Road was in the throes of its final bankruptcy; barley shippers in the Sisseton area sought to ensure that service would continue. Dakota Rail, together with
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