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Iowa Pacific Holdings L.L.C. and LogiBio L.L.C. recently opened a new terminal near Lovington, N.M., designed to load unit trains of crude oil.

The first train departed on Feb. 4  from the new facility, which was constructed by LogiBio on a Texas-New Mexico Railroad (TNMR) line. The terminal is the second crude-oil unit train facility located on the TNMR, which operates about 100 miles of track between a Union Pacific Railroad connection in Monahans and Lovington, Iowa Pacific officials said in a press release.

Iowa Pacific has spent about $25 million the past three years to upgrade TNMR's infrastructure by replacing rail and ties, installing new ballast and sidings, and constructing a new locomotive shop. In August 2012, UP and TNMR opened a new jointly funded interchange yard in Monahans.

"With the rapid expansion of oil drilling and production over the past few years, producers and traders have found shipping crude oil by rail to be a very viable alternative to pipelines and trucks," said Bruce Carswell, Iowa Pacific's vice president of Permian Basin logistics.