[3] The line lost profitability and at the risk of being abandoned by Milwaukee Road, it was embargoed in 1980 and subsequently bought by the South Dakota Department of Transportation, which still owns the tracks.
While the line still officially operates all the way to Kadoka, as the Kadoka-Rapid City portion was rail-banked in 1996,[6] a grade crossing in Vivian is currently paved over, as well as one in Belvidere.
In spring 2011 a 16-million-dollar federal Tiger grant was secured to help finance the 28-million-dollar rebuild of 61.6 miles of the line between Mitchell and Chamberlain.
As a result of the rebuilding, two competing companies proposed building 110-car shuttle loading facilities near Kimball, South Dakota.
South Dakota Wheat Growers started construction on an agronomy services and shuttle loader facility in the fall of 2014 in Kennebec.
[15] As of November 2021 Google Maps showed that tanker cars were stored on the line as far west as the Tabor elevator.
In addition a 40-million-dollar Dakota Plains Ag Center grain facility opened in 2017 at Napa Junction.
If approved the ties and rails would be removed and salvaged and Dakota Southern Railway's lease amended to end at Tyndall.
A federal inspection found that they had been sitting there far too long, and cited 11 counts of hazardous material violations.