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| Milwaukee line to Rapid City https://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3360 |
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| Author: | Bob Yarger [ Thu Jun 20, 2002 12:32 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Milwaukee line to Rapid City |
What became of the old Milwaukee Road line to Rapid City, SD? Last I knew, it was being operated by a shortline to roughly where it crossed the Missouri River, and was dormant further west. I think the track belonged to the state. For a time, one person was offering hunting trips on motorcars on the dormant portion. Is the line still there or removed? ryarger@rypn.org |
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| Author: | Gustaf Kamp [ Thu Jun 20, 2002 2:08 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Milwaukee line to Rapid City |
> What became of the old Milwaukee Road line > to Rapid City, SD? Last I knew, it was being > operated by a shortline to roughly where it > crossed the Missouri River, and was dormant > further west. I think the track belonged to > the state. For a time, one person was > offering hunting trips on motorcars on the > dormant portion. Is the line still there or > removed? Having just completed (June 10) a cross-country roadtrip on I-90 with a fellow Brooklyn Roundhouse Volunteer...we spent a lot of time trying to spot ex-Milwaukee ROW while blazing along at 80mph. My best guess from our high-speed observations is that the track from the Missouri River to Rapid City appears to be intact. It certainly appeared that many lenghty sections had signifigant overgrowth and were not currently or recently in use. We viewed no obvious infrastructural discontinuity such as, missing bridges, though many sections certainly seemed to have a distinct lack of ballast. I would concur with your assessment that the trackage is still mostly dormant and state-owned, at least that's what it looked like. gkamp@mwaarchitects.com |
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| Author: | Terry Dempsey [ Fri Jun 21, 2002 6:01 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Milwaukee line to Rapid City |
> Having just completed (June 10) a > cross-country roadtrip on I-90 with a fellow > Brooklyn Roundhouse Volunteer...we spent a > lot of time trying to spot ex-Milwaukee ROW > while blazing along at 80mph. My best guess > from our high-speed observations is that the > track from the Missouri River to Rapid City > appears to be intact. It certainly appeared > that many lenghty sections had signifigant > overgrowth and were not currently or > recently in use. We viewed no obvious > infrastructural discontinuity such as, > missing bridges, though many sections > certainly seemed to have a distinct lack of > ballast. I would concur with your assessment > that the trackage is still mostly dormant > and state-owned, at least that's what it > looked like. I think an operation called Dakota Southern is (or was?) running this line from Chamberlin to Kadoka with an RS11 and some ex-BN and MILW SD7s. An interesting thing is, they have a ex-UP Cenntenial diesel in Chamberlin whose fuel tank they use for fuel storage for the rest of thier motive power. |
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| Author: | Alex Huff [ Fri Jun 21, 2002 8:09 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Milwaukee line to Rapid City |
Our company holds the lease on the line, so I'll stick my oar in. The line is physically intact from Mitchell to Kadoka, 187 miles. After our offer to reopen the line from Kadoka to Rapid City at our expense was turned down by the owner, the state of South Dakota, all but fifteen miles east of Rapid City was scrapped. Since April 1, 1999 we have operated only the first mile at Mitchell where we interchange with BNSF. The economics of the line changed as a result of BNSF adjusting its rates to encourage shipment of grain in 110 car trains of its 112T cars loaded at elevators it served directly. We did sublease the line to Tim Tennant, d/b/a Cascade Rail Corp, who thought he could make a go of it by charging much lower rates to Mitchell. He lasted ten months before losing all his locomotives for non-payment of leases and also left a lot of unpaid bills. Since then a couple of other potential operators have looked at the line but can't make it pencil out. We have told the state we would re-open the line if the state could force BNSF to grant us trackage rights to Sioux City from Mitchell. Sioux City would give us access to CN/IC and UP. This track is also ex-MILW and owned by the state. When the Governor approached BNSF about this, he was basically told to buzz off. Meanwhile, the line and its equipment remains static. We have two SD-7's ex-MILW 512 and 522, two SD-9's, ex-MILW 506 and ex-SP 4427, two and a half GE 70 tonners, ex-Marianna & Blountstown #75, later Charles City Western #75; ex-Tidewater Southern #743, later CCW #76, which is our active unit, and #"77" a parts 70-tonner without a Diesel, ex-Oliver Iron Mining #1004. We also have two Alcos, an S-3 #103 that was originally Brooks & Scanlon #102, and an ex-Long Island C420, #213. The ex-UP DDA40X #6925 rounds out the fleet. It was purchased with two bad order Diesels, both had thrown rods. It was a parts source for some years, then the remaining bits of the Diesels were sold to MK as cores for rebuilding for commuter locomotives. BTW, we never used the unit as a fuel tank. It was always easier for us to just have a fuel truck fill up the units. There was one incident early on when a new driver was told to go to the railroad and fill a unit. We walked out of the depot and found he was putting fuel in the 8,000 gallon tank on the DDA40X. The railroad also hosts 319 grain covered hoppers owned by GE Railcar. They are a small part of the fleet of 100 ton capacity grain cars which have been rendered obsolete by BNSF pricing. In May we pulled 55 of them from Murdo, the first time a locomotive had been that far west since August, 1999. Over the years since we began in 1985 we have acquired a pretty complete do-it-yourself shortline kit. We also have two Jordan spreaders, one ex-MILW snowplow, two air dumps, several Plasser-American tampers, ballast regulators, tie inserters, etc. Unfortunately, only the Alco C420 has an alignment control drawbar, and BNSF will not move locomotives that don't have them unless they are BNSF locomotives. (Insert your favorite rant about the BNSF here) One last treasure is a genuine Woods Brothers track mower, assembled from parts of a MILW and a CNW nine-foot mower. Powered by a 3-53 Detroit on a push car, we pull it with a hi-rail. I just finished mowing from Chamberlain to Kadoka, 120 miles, so the line doesn't look quite so shaggy as an earlier post mentioned. Even though we don't operate on most of the line we still have responsibilities for weed control, bridge protection, etc. Alex Huff DSRC dsrc512@sd.value.net |
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