The Sisseton Milbank Railroad (Reporting Mark SMRR) is a railroad subsidiary of the

Twin Cities and Western Railroad The Twin Cities and Western Railroad is a railroad operating in the U.S. state of Minnesota which started operations on July 27, 1991. Trackage includes the former Soo Line Railroad "Ortonville Line", originally built as the first part of the Pa ...

that operates between its namesake, the cities of

Sisseton Sisseton is a city in Roberts County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 2,479 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Roberts County. Sisseton is the home to a number of tourist attractions, including the Nicollet Tower, and ...

and

Milbank Milbank LLP (commonly known as Milbank) is an international law firm headquartered in New York City. It also has offices in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, London, Frankfurt, Munich, Tokyo, Hong Kong, São Paulo, Seoul, Singapore, and Beijing. Hi ...

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

. The Sisseton Milbank Railroad operates former Dakota Rail trackage, which is a former Chicago, Milwakuee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad branchline. The railroad mostly ships grain from the elevator in Sisseton to Milbank to be shipped out on the

BNSF BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

line. They also store rail cars on this line when grain shipments are not needed. Currently the railroad ships about 2,500,000 bushels of grain per year, or a little over 500 carloads annually.

Rebuilding

Work on the rail bridge over Lake Farley, the longest structure on the railroad, received a nearly $1.7 million grant to replace the structure. The work was completed in the fall of 2022. In the South Dakota state budget proposed by governor

Kristi Noem Kristi Lynn Noem (; née Arnold; born November 30, 1971) is an American politician serving as the 33rd governor of South Dakota since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, she was the U.S. representative for from 2011 to 2019 and a member ...

in December 2022, $6,250,000 was proposed as the state's matching contribution to a proposed $24,000,000 Federal Government grant to rebuild the railroad, upgrading from lightweight 75 lb rail rolled as far back as 1884, capable of train speeds of only 3 to 5 miles per hour, with a weight limit of 263,000 lbs, and a limit of 13 loaded rail cars.

References

* South Dakota railroads {{US-rail-transport-stub