Portal:Trains/Featured article/Week 25, 2005

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad (DM&E) is a Class II railroad operating across South Dakota and southern Minnesota in the northern plains of the United States. Portions of the railroad also extend into Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa. The DM&E began operations on September 5, 1986 over tracks that were spun off from the Chicago and North Western Railway in South Dakota and Minnesota. Much of the negotiations were handled by the office of Senator Larry Pressler and his legal counsel Kevin V. Schieffer. After a successful decade of growth for the DM&E, Schieffer succeeded J. C. McIntyre as president of the railroad on November 7, 1996. In 1997 the DM&E announced plans to build into Wyoming's Powder River Basin to become the third railroad (after Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway and Union Pacific Railroad) to tap into the region's rich coal deposits. The construction is planned to be completed in 2007 and the addition of the revenues gained from hauling coal along the new line has the potential of elevating the combined DM&E/IC&E system from AAR's Class II to Class I. The DM&E purchased the I&M Rail Link railroad in 2002, renaming it Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad and combining its management and dispatching duties with those of the DM&E under the holding company Cedar American Rail Holdings. Schieffer serves as president and CEO of Cedar as well as serving as president of the DM&E. The combined system directly connects Chicago through Iowa to Kansas City, Minneapolis/St. Paul and continues as far west as Rapid City, South Dakota. Smaller branches extend into portions of Wisconsin, Wyoming and Nebraska.

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