Late last year, the Surface Transportation Board said that it was reviewing an unprecedented number of railroad construction proposals—11 in all.

Since then, the board has acted on a few of those plans. For example, the STB recently announced that it had done the following:

• Approved construction of a 280-mile rail line by the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad Corp. into Wyoming's coal-rich Powder River Basin. The STB says the project is the largest ever considered by the agency. The project is expected to cost about $1.4 billion, which includes $532 million for the new line and $876 million to rebuild and upgrade an additional 600 miles of existing line. DM&E applied for that authority in 1998. The railroad must still obtain permits from several other agencies before construction can begin.
• Approved construction of a 7.5-mile rail line by Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. between Seadrift and Kamey, Texas. The line will connect with a Union Carbide Corp. complex at Seadrift and with a Union Pacific line near Kamey. The Union Carbide facility, now served solely by Union Pacific, has been exploring construction of a connection to a second railroad since the 1980s. In its approval of the merger of Union Pacific and Southern Pacific in 1996, the board included a condition that would allow eventual construction of the new BNSF line.
• Approved construction by the Illinois Central Railroad (now part of Canadian National) to build a 3.2-mile line in East Baton Rouge Parish, La. The line will allow an ExxonMobil Chemical Co. plant access to a second railroad. The plant is now served solely by Kansas City Southern Railway.