BILLINGS, Mont. — A billionaire candy magnate has gone from
staunchly opposing a Montana railroad that would have cut through
his massive ranch to buying a one-third share of it, shielding his
property while potentially opening the state’s vast coal fields to
mining for export to Asia.

Forrest Mars Jr., former chief executive of candy company Mars
Inc., previously helped bankroll opposition to the Tongue River
Railroad from landowners and conservationists.

By buying into the proposed line, Mars said in a letter to his
former allies in the fight against the railroad, he was blocking a
section that would have stretched approximately 45 miles between
the towns of Birney and Decker, which is near the Wyoming
border.

That segment would have passed for more than 7 miles through
Mars’ 82,000-acre ranch.

Financial terms have not been disclosed, but the substance of
the deal was outlined in a letter from Mars and documents filed
with the federal Surface Transportation Board.

BNSF Railway and Arch Coal Inc. also bought one-third shares of
the railway. Arch has leased more than a billion tons of coal near
the proposed route from the state of Montana and Texas-based Great
Northern Properties.

Arch plans to ship much of the fuel to Asia.

“The agreement with BNSF and Arch is the best of both worlds,”
Mars wrote in the letter to Ed Gulick, chairman of the Northern
Plains Resource Council, a Billings-based conservation group. “This
agreement is a way to protect as much of the Tongue River as
possible, impinge upon as few landowners as possible and create
much-needed jobs in the area.”

Two years ago, in his days as one of the Tongue River Railroad’s
chief opponents, Mars hired a lobbyist to press the state
Legislature to change Montana’s eminent domain law so it would be
harder to build the line.

Mark Fix, a rancher along the river and one of the most vocal
opponents of the railway, said

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