Known railroads and their operations for South Dakota are listed here. Subdivisions that cross state lines will only contain information and GPS ranges to approximately the state line to prevent unnecessary overlap.

Due to operational changes, mergers and general changes, some railroad radio channels may be reused by the same or adjacent railroads. However, if using RadioReference aware scanners or software, you can reduce seeing or duplicating this information by scanning just the subdivisions or locations that you are interested in.

Railroads are listed by size starting with the largest and ending with historical/tourist operations and in alphabetical order.

Passenger operations can be heard on the respective railroad they are operating on unless passenger stations have specific radio assignments.

Short alpha names are comprised of the railroads AAR reporting mark, AAR channel number and subdivision or major use function. The description field will contain actual use or location information to provide the best possible information for various scanners, users and readability.

The BNSF uses a PBX system across the state known as MRAS which supplements the dispatcher radios. These radios are known by channel or colors and are listed for each subdivision that they are in use.

The west end of the former Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad is now operated by Genesee & Wyoming as the Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern Railroad.