13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Storm blows rail cars off tracks in Greene Co.

Storm blows rail cars off tracks in Greene Co.

Sandra Chapman/Eyewitness News

Worthington - Severe storms with strong winds left a trail of damage through Indiana Wednesday. Cleanup crews are still out dealing with downed trees and power lines.

"I've never seen it happen before," said 68-year-old Larry Corbin of Linton, as he snapped still pictures of what looked like a train wreck. "Strong winds. Straight line winds probably."

The winds were stronger than a freight train, or at least a dozen freight cars, which were slammed onto their sides in Greene County. At 8:30 Wednesday morning, local radar showed winds topping 60 MPH, but officials suspect it was more.

"It's very rarely that a tree could actually do something like that. The cars weigh upwards of 65,000-85,000 pounds, so it had to be very strong winds to come through here to do this kind of damage. Once you have one that turns over, it has the tendency to pull the others over with it," said Chris Burgess, assistant general manager for the Indiana Southern Railroad.

The Indiana Southern Railroad was storing the empty cars on the line for an independent company. The cars have sat on the same stretch of inoperable rail line for almost a year. The last time a train came down the tracks was before last spring's flooding.

The rail company plans to bring in contractors to lift the heavy rail cars back onto the tracks.

From snapshots to snapped trees, the storm's fury toppled trees, throwing limbs into power lines and almost through the front door of one Scotland home. Fortunately, no one was hurt or even home at the time.

"Really hard rain and wind and eventually, there was some hail," said neighbor Janet Merkel.

An aerial tour from Chopper 13 found swollen waterways couldn't hold it all together, either. Pooled water near some neighborhoods quickly became cool water play for summer break.

For others, playtime would have it's limits with the city park underwater in Linton. As the system stormed further west, there was one more noticeable hit in Brownsburg, where lightning sparked a house fire.