NEW RR OPERATING IN BLACK HILLS?

[CANADIANPACIFIC2816]

In 1880 the Burlington Route extended their trackage from Alliance, Nebraska into the Black Hills of South Dakota and they operated as far north as Deadwood and Lead. A portion of the orginal CB&Q Black Hills Highline between Hill City and Keystone, South Dakota is now in the hands of the Black Hills Central Railroad, otherwise known to a lot of people as the "1880 Train".

There is a group of individuals in the Deadwood-Whitewood area who have been trying to create or restore excursion passenger service between Deadwood and Whitewood, a distance of ten miles between the two points.
One of these individuals is a friend of mine who practices law in Deadwood, and he told me last year that they were working on such a project and that they were lose to pulling it off.

Last night I had been to a meeting of the Sioux Falls Camera Club, and one of our members told me that he had seen a news report somewhere regarding the railroad project for Deadwood and Whitewood. I neglected to ask him what his source of information was. Deadwood, in the days of steam was served by both the CB&Q and the Chicago & Northwestern, and the C&NW ran trains through Whitewood.

[CANADIANPACIFIC2816]

I wasn't quite finished with my piece about the new Railroad possibly operating in the Black Hills of South Dakota when I accidently hit the Submit Reply button. What I would like to ask the rest of you out there is this: Is there anyone out there who knows anything about this project and can tell us more about it??

Ray Loftesness II
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
Sioux Falls, South Dakota

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CANADIANPACIFIC2816

I wasn't quite finished with my piece about the new Railroad possibly operating in the Black Hills of South Dakota when I accidently hit the Submit Reply button. What I would like to ask the rest of you out there is this: Is there anyone out there who knows anything about this project and can tell us more about it??

Ray Loftesness II
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
Sioux Falls, South Dakota

The article was in the Argus Leader. Kevin Costner is part of the deal. I've heard of the proposal on and off for about 10 years.

[CANADIANPACIFIC2816]

I was never able to find the Argus Leader piece, but one of KELO's affiliate television stations did a story on this on the 17th of October and I found their story while doing an Internet search. Furthermore, I spoke with my friend who practices law in Deadwood a couple weeks ago and he gave me the same basic information that I found on KELO's web site.

So far, this group of investors has raised 95% of the twenty-two million dollars that will be needed to fund this railroad project between Rapid City and Deadwood. They are negotiating with the DM&E for trackage rights out of Rapid City. The segment of trackage between Whitewood, South Dakota and Deadwood will have to be relaid, and my friend told me over the phone that they will be able to use the original railroad grade.
The section of trackage between Whitewood and Deadwood was originally C&NW property and there is an abandoned tunnel on the line which my friend and I walked through in September of 1988. We paced it off at something like 900 paces, I'm not sure how many feet that would translate to. The tunnel is just outside of Whitewood.

There are a lot of people who own property along the proposed railroad route and naturally they don't want their land taken for this project, but another friend of mine told me that he thought they would eventually sell if they were offered enough money. My friend in Deadwood told me that one of the reasons he thinks this project will be so successful is that the gambling industry in the Black Hills and Deadwood in particular has grown to the point where there is not a lot of parking spaces left in Deadwood. He told me that this would give people who come to Deadwood from Rapid City to gamble the incentive to leave their cars in Rapid City and ride the train to Deadwood and then back again.

They are also hoping to be able to run both diesel and steam power on the Whitewood to Deadwood segment of the line, and just finding an operable steam locomotive is going to be a bit of a challenge for them. The segment of trackage between Deadwood and Whitewood would be approximately 10 miles in length.

It will be interesting to see if this group of investors will actually be able to pull this off.

CANADIANPACIFIC2816