The story
1986–1996: Startup and initial expansion
In 1983, the Chicago and North Western Railway (CNW) announced plans to abandon a section of railroad between Pierre, South Dakota and Rapid City. Due to pressure from customers and Senator Larry Pressler from South Dakota, a deal was reached and announced on April 24, 1986, to purchase divisions of the CNW from Winona, Minnesota, to Rapid City, creating the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad. This deal also included buildings, rolling stock and locomotives, mostly rebuilt EMD SD9s, from the CNW. Many of the negotiations were handled by the office of Senator Larry Pressler and his legal counsel Kevin V. Schieffer. After DM&E's successful first decade, Schieffer succeeded J. C. McIntyre as president of the railroad on November 7, 1996.
DM&E began operations on this track on September 5, 1986. The railroad was expanded in 1995 when it acquired additional former CNW branch lines from Rapid City, South Dakota; to Colony, Wyoming; and Crawford, Nebraska. That same year, the CNW ceased to exist after being merged into Union Pacific.
From startup to the railroad's ten-year anniversary in 1996, DM&E hauled nearly 500,000 carloads of freight, which includes 700 million bushels of grain. DM&E celebrated the anniversary with picnics and employee appreciation events and excursions in Waseca, Minnesota, and Pierre, South Dakota.
Kevin V. Schieffer, whom former United States President George H. W. Bush had appointed as US Attorney for South Dakota in 1991, became president of DM&E on November 7, 1996. Schieffer was no newcomer to the railroad; he first became involved with DM&E in 1983 when he worked to prevent the abandonment of the former CNW lines that eventually formed the first sections of DM&E's mainline. Maintaining the status quo on DM&E was not the fate that he had in mind for the railroad as he took the reins.
1997–2006: plans for expansion into the Powder River Basin
Expansion plans
In 1997, DM&E announced plans to expand into the Powder River Basin (PRB) in Wyoming and provide unit coal train service from that area. The railroad filed an application for the expansion to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) on February 20, 1998. Burlington Northern Railroad built into this area in 1979, and the Chicago and North Western Railway (CNW) also sought to access the PRB coalfields, a project accomplished by CNW's successor Union Pacific Railroad. DM&E would become the third railroad to tap into the coal deposits in the region.
DM&E's expansion would require the construction of 281 miles (452 km) of new track, upgrading 598 miles (962 km) of existing track (including all of the railroad's mainline track in Minnesota), new mainline connections at Owatonna, and Mankato, Minnesota, and three new rail yards. The plan would be the largest new railroad construction in the United States since the completion of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road)'s Pacific extension to Seattle, Washington, in 1909.
Initial approval
The STB approved the application on December 10, 1998, pending completion of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which was released by the STB on September 27, 2000.
An analysis of the plan by Minnesota's Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad Working Group in 2001 showed support among customers and freight shippers, but DM&E's expansion plan led to complaints among residents in communities along the railroad's right-of-way. While some communities welcomed the railroad's expansion plan as an opportunity for increased business within their own cities, other residents and businesses felt that roads in the area were not built with enough overpasses and underpasses to deal with the traffic flow problems that the longer and more frequent unit trains would produce at grade crossings. The objectors cited concerns of the general public in safely and quickly traversing their communities as well as the ability of emergency vehicles to cross the tracks to reach emergency scenes or hospitals. The city of Rochester, Minnesota, filed with the STB to compel the railroad to build a bypass around the city as a condition to granting the railroad permission to build the Powder River extension. The bypass was estimated to cost around US$100 million.
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Further legal actions
After a period of public comment that lasted until March 16, 2001, and further review by the STB, the final EIS was issued on November 19, 2001. In this approval, the STB agreed with DM&E that no new bypasses around cities would be required even though the cities of Rochester, Minnesota, Brookings and Pierre, South Dakota, had requested them. In 2003, a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ordered the STB to re-examine potential environmental issues around Rochester. The STB's preliminary report, released in early 2005, noted that no additional steps were needed by the railroad to alleviate noise and vibration caused by the projected increase in train traffic.
The court upheld the STB's approval with stipulations for the new line's environmental impact, including the projected increase in the frequency of train horn soundings along the line. From the court's ruling, the STB issued a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement which set forth mitigation strategies for the railroad. On February 15, 2006, the STB announced its final approval of the railroad's 1998 application.
In April 2004, United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld a lower court's actions in overturning part of South Dakota legislation passed in 1999 (two years after the railroad first announced its intentions to expand) that would have impaired railroad operations and construction in the state. The decision restored the legal process by which the railroad could effectively force landowners along the proposed new route to sell their land to the railroad.
Funding
With the final EIS in place and approval from the STB, DM&E had the authority to undertake the expansion as proposed, but needed financing. On February 26, 2007, the FRA rejected a proposed $2.3 billion loan to DM&E. In announcing the decision, Administrator Joseph H. Boardman noted that the project proposal met many federal requirements for the loan but cited concerns that the railroad might not be able to handle cost overruns during construction or to repay the loan after construction was completed.
2002–2007: consolidation with IC&E
DM&E hauled nearly 60,000 carloads of freight in fiscal year 2002, serving approximately 130 customers along the railroad's mainline. Of these shipments, 53% were grains or grain products, 24% were bentonite and kaolin clay, 7% were cement, and 5% were wood and lumber products; the remaining 11% were split among all other types of freight.
On February 21, 2002, DM&E announced that it would purchase the railroad assets of 1,700-mile (2,700 km) I&M Rail Link (IMRL) from its then-owner The Washington Companies. DM&E renamed the IMRL property to Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad (IC&E) and began operations on July 30, 2002. A purchase price was not stated in the original announcement, but an article in the May 2002 Trains Magazine reported that several industry sources believed the total to be around $150 million.
DM&E and IC&E combined management under the holding company Cedar American Rail Holdings. Locomotives of both railroads were given a unified paint scheme and interchanges were streamlined between the two railroads. The administration of both railroads was handled by Cedar, further streamlining processes between the two railroads. The combined DM&E–IC&E system made up the largest Class II railroad (by route-miles) in the United States; it was also the eighth largest system of all American railroads and the only system with direct rail connections with all Class I railroads in North America.
In its first twenty years of operations, the railroad's revenues had increased more than tenfold, from $22 million in 1987 to $258 million in 2006, with $290 million projected in 2007 and $340 million for 2008. Its operating ratio (the ratio of operating expenses to revenues) declined to 70.2% in 2006 and was projected to improve further to 67.6% in 2007. Its traffic was a mix of agricultural, coal, and industrial products, and ethanol shipments were projected to exceed one billion gallons in 2008.
From Wikipedia’s article on Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3