Does South Dakota Really Need Amtrak?

The railroad along the Mitchell-Chamberlain-Kadoka-Rapid City alignment. The depot is at Murdo, South Dakota (population 460), once a crew change point. Mark Meyer photo.

In his May 16, 2024 Railway Age commentary, South Dakotan Dan Bilka is proud to say “People Live Here” when referencing his home state. And as such, according to his reasoning, South Dakota should have access to Amtrak rail passenger service, as is the case in 46 of the 48 contiguous states (all except South Dakota and Wyoming). True, people do live in South Dakota … about 900,000 of them. But population density in America varies widely, and the very size and boundaries of states often reflect politics, conflict and geography. South Dakota is larger than all six New England states combined, but has one-sixteenth the population.

Access to Amtrak service in the United States is similarly not uniformly accessible. Idaho has Amtrak service, but its lone station in the Northern Panhandle city of Sandpoint is more than 400 miles away from center of the state’s population. Can you guess which state has Amtrak stations in Ashland, South Portsmouth, Maysville, and Fulton? If not, a hint is it is the state where the much-larger cities like Louisville, Frankfort, Lexington, and Bowling Green are located, but without Amtrak service.

Like Idaho, Kentucky’s Amtrak service is of little use to most of the state’s residents. Cities like Nashville, Columbus (Ohio), and Las Vegas have metro populations twice that of South Dakota also have no Amtrak service. And then there are cities like Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Houston, and Phoenix with metro populations from two to seven million people where Amtrak trains call but six times per week—three times going one way and three the other.

So, while there are people residing in South Dakota and Wyoming, a nationwide prioritization is necessary to determine how to enhance America’s intercity rail passenger network. Such a priority should be making Amtrak long-distance trains truly relevant on existing routes by adding frequencies, such as between New York and Florida, New York and Chicago, and Chicago and Texas to name a few. And even beyond this, the overriding goal should be preserving the current Amtrak long-distance network considering it is currently a race to see whether replacement equipment for the aging Superliners can become available before service is truncated due to lack of serviceable equipment.

A major problem with where passenger trains can and do operate within the United States is related to infrastructure. Outside Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor and a few other short segments, passenger trains operate on privately owned and maintained infrastructure provided by the freight railroads. In general, the more freight traffic, the better the ability to accommodate passenger trains because the infrastructure reflects higher traffic levels. (Amtrak doesn’t sufficiently compensate most freight railroads for the cost of operating their higher-speed trains amongst slower, heavier freight traffic.) This is why Amtrak’s Empire Builder across North Dakota works: Much of its route is a heavily trafficked FRA Class 4 route (79 MPH maximum for passenger trains), with adequate meet/pass capacity and is equipped with Positive Train Control. 

Other than a few states in New England, South Dakota has the most difficult railroad infrastructure in the Lower 48. This is not a fluke; it is simple geography. The Black Hills are something to be built around, and there are no low-grade mountain passes directly to the west in Wyoming. This explains why transcontinental routes were built to the north through Montana or further south through Southern Wyoming. Of the nearly 2,000 miles of track in South Dakota, fewer than 65 miles have a track speed of greater than 40 MPH.

Except for rail freight using the two BNSF main routes that skirt South Dakota through Edgemont (in the southwest corner) and Garretson (in the southeast), and those to and from the American Colloid bentonite facility at Colony, Wyo., no rail shipments in the United States require traversing the state of South Dakota to arrive at their destination. As such, the vast majority of the state’s rail freight traffic originates or terminates in South Dakota, and of that, 90% or more is “East River” (the part of the state east of the Missouri River) and agriculture-based.

The Federal Railroad Administration is in the process of studying 15 potential new long-distance routes. In what must be a purely political move, the Minneapolis/St. Paul-to-Denver route across South Dakota touted by Mr. Bilka is one of them. Of all the proposed routes, this one has the least amount of merit, at zero. The route is 1,150 miles in length, with 71% being dark (unsignaled) territory, including all 520 miles within the state of South Dakota. Nearly 50% of those miles have a current track speed of 25 MPH or much less—down to 10 MPH in places between Fort Pierre and Philip and most of the route between Rapid City and Crawford, Neb. The proposed passenger route in South Dakota currently has minimal meet/pass capacity, which corresponds to its low traffic levels (one to three trains per day on average).

One of the benefits of investing in passenger train infrastructure touted by passenger train advocates is that said infrastructure also increases fluidity for rail freight traffic and could coax shippers to use freight rail instead of trucks, which is favorable to the environment and makes our highways safer. But in South Dakota, there would be no such benefit despite spending billions, because all traffic within the state would continue to go via other states to take advantage of routes with superior operating characteristics. This would logically result in the operating railroads demanding a recurring subsidy to maintain lightly trafficked routes for passenger train speeds. An example is Amtrak’s Southwest Chief route for the nearly 280 miles between La Junta, Colo. and Lamy, N.Mex., where Amtrak trains are usually the only movements over a very challenging segment of railroad. (A lower-cost alternative was offered by host railroad BNSF decades ago, but politics kept the train on its current route.) As such, Amtrak reported a FY2023 operating loss of $82 million for the Chicago-Los Angeles Southwest Chief vs. just $55 million for the Chicago-Seattle/Portland Empire Builder.

And if that’s not enough, should Amtrak service ever come to South Dakota, the state would lose its STC (Special Transportation Circumstances) grants. These grants are offered to the states of Wyoming, Alaska and South Dakota in lieu of not having Amtrak service. And while Mr. Bilka dismisses losing the funding as an eventuality without suggesting an alternative, it should be noted that this funding is critical to financing upgrades to South Dakota’s one regional and numerous short line railroads. Of the $58.8 million available in the 2023 grant application cycle, more than $54 million was awarded to railroads in South Dakota. Over the years, STC grants have allowed track upgrades that led to the construction of shuttle grain train facilities on short line railroads at Britton, Kimball, Kennebec and Presho, with a current goal of obtaining funding for the Sisseton Milbank Railroad to enable such a facility to be built at Sisseton. Shuttle grain elevators are huge capital investments and provide a significant boon to local economies. It is truly unlikely that South Dakotans will support giving up a funding source that has proven so beneficial for so long.

A passenger train route across South Dakota is not a “Build It and They Will Come” scenario. Such a project would create disproportionate scarce resources, benefit a relatively small population base, and not significantly enhance rail freight infrastructure. The FRA should be embarrassed for even placing this albatross in the study.

Mark Meyer is retired after spending 40 years in railroad operations at Burlington Northern and BNSF, most recently managing the locomotive fleet on North Operations, which included South Dakota and adjacent states.