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The Surface Transportation Board (STB) recently granted Tongue River Railroad Inc. (TRRC) final approval to build a 17.3-mile line in Montana pending certain environmental mitigation conditions.

The board blessed a western alignment TRRC proposed in Rosebud and Big Horn counties that's at the southernmost part of the railroad's planned 41-mile, Ashland-to-Decker line, which the STB approved in 1996.

The western alignment is shorter and less steep, and minimizes environmental impacts to the Tongue River Canyon, an "environmentally sensitive 10-mile section of the Tongue River," according to the STB decision.

TRRC will build the line to expedite coal shipments moving from existing and future Montana mines to Midwestern and Northeastern markets.