(The Associated Press circulated the following article on May 16.)
ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad has asked the federal Surface Transportation Board for permission to carry coal on a line Rochester rail opponents once dubbed “the ultimate bypass.”
The DM&E filed a petition Friday urging the board to revise conditions that block the railroad from routing coal trains onto the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad, which runs south from the DM&E line at Owatonna, through Iowa to Chicago. The STB set the restriction as a condition of authorizing DM&E’s acquisition of IC&E, then the IMRL, in 2002.
DM&E’s petition says the restriction has made it difficult for the railroad to raise private funds for a proposed $2.5 billion upgrade and expansion. The project would revamp the entire DM&E line and extend it 260 miles to reach coal mines in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.
A few months ago, opponents to coal traffic being routed through Rochester were lobbying to have trains diverted onto the IC&E line as a condition of approving the project or its financing. The route, at that time, was called “the ultimate bypass.”