Our train continued on west on the Whiteface Subdivision.
We passed the former South Plains & Santa Fe Whiteface depot along with Santa Fe cabooses 999770 and 999321.
Looking across the Texas Highway 114 where dinosaurs are sold.
John Deere tractors.
Field sprinklers.
Green fields.
Bundles of cotton.
An interesting building.
Looking down the road.
Cotton gins.
The former siding at Hurlwood.
A west Texas farm.
More of west Texas.
Looking across Texas Highway 114.
More cotton fields.
Circular crop sprinkler.
A large bird flew overhead.
The Levelland/Hockley County ethanol plant.
As seen through the vestibule.
A great-looking sky.
Here we are approaching the Levelland Industrial Rail Park.
We would be riding this new line on the way back from our turn-around point at Levelland.
Oil tanks.
The "Moose" that some of us will ride out to Whiteface later this afternoon. We stopped, the crew switched ends and very soon we would be riding this new trackage that was recently dedicated over the Levelland Industrial Rail Park trackage.
Taking the first curve on this new line.
The second curve.
The cotton gin at Levelland.
We started down the straight track where we found an air compressor blocking our path ahead and until it could be moved, we would be stuck here, so we detrained for a photo runby.
Our lead engine.
A ballast regulator photo runby. This device would move the air compressor out of the way that had been left by the contractor.
Our train reversed for the photo runby.
Photo runby two.
Two more views of our train.
The other end.
Many of our train's passengers waiting to reboard. The ballast regulator started to move the air compressor out of our way then everyone reboarded and we started to move forward again.
This is the site of the new Levelland cotton gin.
Our train taking the third curve of this new rail line.
The final curve.
Go Levelland.com.
The equipment was now out of our way.
Our train returned to the mainline.
We were on our way to Lubbock, 29 miles away to the east but we ran into a slight problem. As we had gone around the balloon track, the train was now reversed and the cars had the numbers on the wrong side for tonight's Polar Express trip. When we returned to Reese Wye, we had to wye the train again so that the numbers would be facing the correct way.
Once that was done, we proceeded back to Doud Yard and met an eastbound freight as we were going through.
We passed San Luis and Rio Grande SD9043MAC 113, ex. Texas and New Mexico 113, nee Capital Group 113 built by Electro-Motive Division in 1999 in the yard then returned to the Lubbock Water Park where we all detrained, ending an excellent trip today.
Two views of our train at the boarding area. From here, Dave Smetko, Randy Jackson and I followed Bart and Sarah Jennings back out to Levelland, where those who had paid in advance would ride the Moose out to Whiteface, or back from there.
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