You've heard about wind shear in the atmosphere in relation to airplanes.
Well, I can tell you from first hand experience wind shear exists in
railroading. One night I was riding the first car down main trk 2 that would
eventually become the delivery to Delmonte 199. We were switching the storage
out at Rochelle and we made up the 199s on 2 and when we had had everything
lined up we'd shove throughout town to 199 and then come back and pull the
Carnations off the storage and pull them up to carnation, switch Swift and
New City,etc. So I'm riding this 50ft rbl down 2 slowly rolling Westward and
when we've rolled far enough I'll tie a brake on her and we'll kick many more
on top. This night there was an Eastbounder going thru town on main one
w/Herbie at the throttle and that speed restriction on the curve between the
diagonal road xing and the coal chute x/o was getting stretched to say the
least. As he passed going east and me and my rbl going west I was hit w/a
blast of wind that literally tore me off the end cat walk despite holding
tight to the end rail on the car. I landed on top of the rail head on my back
in front of the still rolling car and as I shook off the shock I rolled out
of the way just in time to avoid being cut in half by the wheels. Just
another day at the "office." Leo
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