• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- The South Dakota Railroad Board is planning to sell 54 miles of an abandoned railroad line in the far southeast part of the state next month.
• The former freight line was built around 1900 and runs east of the Missouri River from Platte to Napa Junction, just north of Yankton.
• Bruce Lindholm, program manager of the state Department of Transportation's office of air, rail and transit, said the $1.5 million deal with Iron Horse Development Company of Kimball should be finalized at the board's June 19 meeting.
• "Right now we're negotiating, and it will have to be approved by the board," Lindholm said.
• The board agreed in 2006 to sell the state-owned line to Wagner Native Ethanol for $1.5 million, but because the company missed deadlines to shore up financing, the board voted last year to accept new proposals to renovate and restore railroad service.
• The deal with Iron Mountain, which is also partnering with Aberdeen-based ag cooperative Wheat Growers on a planned agronomy retail center east of Kimball, was the first one the board felt comfortable with, railroad board chairman Chet Groseclose said.
• "Everybody has goodwill in trying to find the solution, but we just hadn't found anything that we agreed upon unanimously until this one came along," Groseclose said.
• South Dakota bought the stretch after the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad -- known as the Milwaukee Road -- declared bankruptcy in the late 1970s. Estimates to restore it neared $30 million and South Dakota didn't have the money to fix it, officials have said.
• Iron Horse Development Company's plans call for renovating the eastern part of the line while letting the line west of Wagner, from Ravinia to Platte, to be dismantled and salvaged to fund the reconstruction.
• Lindholm said the contract would allow Wagner Native Ethanol to buy part of the line from Iron Horse if the ethanol plant can get its financing.
• "There's some provisions that would require them and Iron House to work it out if they get their funding in a relatively short term," he said.
• Groseclose said that Gov. Dennis Daugaard has asked board members to con

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