On February 12th, 2023, when Judy and I went down to load our baggage into our Ford Explorer we discovered several vehicles that had been parked next to ours directly in front of the well-lit main door of the Holiday Inn Express had windows broken out during the night. We were fortunate to only have one crack in the passenger side front window that could wait for replacement until we got home. The hotel said Clovis has gang issues these days and of course denied all responsibility.
We headed east to Sweetwater where we intended to spend our last night on the road. No trains were seen along the way, so once we got settled in at the hotel with several hours of daylight left I headed back out to see what I could find. Nothing was running on the BNSF but the radio alerted me to an eastbound UP leaving their depot heading to Fort Worth after a crew change and I drove east to Tecific to photograph it a few minutes later. The tracks in the foreground are the BNSF Tecific main and siding on the Slaton Sub. The BNSF’s Lampassas Sub begins about one-half mile behind me at the east end of Tecific.
This UP ILAMN intermodal from Los Angeles to Marion, Arkansas (Memphis) with four units up front was quite long and had two DPU’s mid-train.
I heard on the radio this train would be meeting the westbound ZAILC “Laser” intermodal from Atlanta to Los Angeles at Holder siding in Abilene. I found a suitable location to wait and launch the drone for an aerial view of the westbound negotiating the big curve at the west end of Eskota siding. When I heard the detector east of Eskota sound off on the radio, I launched the drone for these two views.
Happy with the results, I headed back to the room and we ordered a pizza to be delivered for dinner. The next morning we were both ready to get home and only stopped for lunch at the Smokestack Restaurant in Thurber.