Rapid City, Pierre and Eastern Railroad 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 and Nebraska. It is owned and operated by
Genesee & Wyoming
Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (G&W) is an American short line railroad holding company, that owns or maintains an interest in 122 railroads in the United States, Canada, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom and formerly Australia. It operates ...
. The primary commodities shipped are grain, clay, and cement. Operations began on June 1, 2014.
History
The Genesee & Wyoming, a holding company of mostly
shortline railroads, formed the Rapid City, Pierre and Eastern to acquire the western end of the former
Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad
The Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad is a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Before its purchase, it was the largest Class II railroad in the United States, operating across South Dakota and southern Minnesota in ...
(DM&E) rail line from the
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...
(CPR). The RCPE and DM&E entered an agreement on January 2, 2014, wherein RCPE would acquire 670 miles of track and 219 miles of trackage rights from the DM&E.
(Owned by the State of South Dakota and operated by the RCPE, meets the BNSF at Yale from Watertown)
at Wolsey, South Dakota, Crawford, Nebraska, and Florence, Minnesota. The interchange with the Canadian Pacific is at Tracy, Minnesota.
The RCPE has trackage rights from Tracy to Mankato, Minnesota on the CPR, where there is an interchange with the
.