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Welcome to Prairie Land Barge!

The print news media is becoming less and less relevant each day. This is especially true when it comes to the railfan news media. CTC Board, a magazine for which I was the DM&E news editor, recently decided to cease including a news section in their magazine.

It is via this medium, the weblog (or "blog"), that we will attempt to provide timely aggregation of news, commentary, first-hand reporting and other content of interest as it relates to Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad and its affiliates.

I'll tell you more about the editorial team here at Prairie Land Barge in the future. I can tell you that they're certainly no slouches when it comes to producing quality content with regard to railroads in the region served by DM&E.

Matthew Frahm

SD sells Core Lines to BNSF

Via PRNewsWire, the State of South Dakota has reached an agreement to sell the state-owned ex-Milwaukee Road "Core Lines" to BNSF.

DM&E operates on a few miles of these lines in order to reach the Redfield & Mansfield Subdivisions, and also Aberdeen.

Notably, the release includes the following:

In addition to the purchase of the Core line, BNSF has agreed to allow certain access rights to the Core line by smaller, South Dakota based railroads. While all of these access rights are important, the most notable is expanding access through the BNSF transfer point in Aberdeen. This agreement will allow agricultural product shippers in South Dakota access to additional markets.

(Emphasis added)

This bodes well for DM&E's past attempts at interchange in Aberdeen with Dakota, Missouri Valley & Western via the Britton Line and ultimately to CPR.