Yes, there is railroad real estate connecting Santa Fe with Rapid City: a set of rusty, maybe-active tracks in the historic rail bed now owned by Canadian Pacific terminates on BNSF's holdings at Dakota Junction, Nebraska.
From the draft ColoRail Background Paper (pdf):
1. Problem: Amtrak’s Los Angeles to Chicago Southwest Chief, currently operated over BNSF in New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas, faces an uncertain future between now and 2015. At issue is the future cost of track work, bridges and signals maintenance necessary for passenger train operations. There is not a Congressional funding mechanism for this presently available.The Southwest Chief goes through Trindad, Colorado but there is currently only freight traffic from there to Denver and commuter rail has only been proposed north of Colorado Springs.
Update:
Today Gov. Dennis Daugaard filed a petition with the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) raising questions about the acquisition by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) of the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern (DM&E) Railroad. [press release, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2013]Yesterday:
Gov. Dennis Daugaard announced today that he will appoint Kevin Schieffer of Sioux Falls to the South Dakota Board of Regents. Schieffer retired in 2008 after 12 years as CEO of the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad. Prior to that, he worked as United States Attorney for South Dakota from 1991 to 1993, engaged in private practice for three years and served as chief of staff to U.S. Senator Larry Pressler from 1982 to 1991. [press release, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013]Apparently, David Montgomery saw it, too (my tweets beat his by an hour).
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