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 (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. The RCPE also has

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may ...

over the BNSF Railway between Yale, SD to Watertown, South Dakota, and Wolsey, South Dakota to

Aberdeen, South Dakota Aberdeen ( Lakota: ''Ablíla'') is a city in and the county seat of Brown County, South Dakota, United States, located approximately northeast of Pierre. The city population was 28,495 at the 2020 census, making it the third most populous ci ...