Passing Freight Trains Disrupt Marathon

Passing freight trains disrupted the 2005 Quad Cities Marathon, prompting a race organizer to drive a pace truck into the path of an approaching locomotive.

After runners were forced to stop and wait as two trains made their way through East Moline on Sunday, Joe Moreno sped over to an intersection near the 22-mile marker and parked his truck on the railroad tracks, blocking a third train from passing.

"I don't know how fast it was coming, but you could hear it coming from a distance. It was blowing its horn," Moreno said Monday.

The train stopped less than a block away from Moreno's truck.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ ... TE=DEFAULT

Who would organize a marathon crossing an active RR without consulting with them. Duh!

That nitwit isn't blocking the train from going over the crossing by parking his truck there. That train could have destroyed that truck and made it look like a matchbox. How about using a route that don't go over railroad crossings.

It wasnt as bad as it looked. The crossing was at a spot on the IAIS that trains are moving 10 mph and going slow to check a switch for the BNSF industrial.
Granted Moreno is an idiot, and I dont remember hearing about two other trains ( the one he stopped stopped again blocking runners) He did contact the railroad however the IAIS did say it was beyond their control.
Now our job was tied up and the ICE as well so all the IAIS had to do was hold their train in Silvis, But who knows why they didnt. This route has been used before and no other incidents have happened.

Moreno should have been arrested and slapped with a hefty fine. Not only was that illegal, but it also endangered the lives of the runners - they would have run right across the tracks, thinking the truck was going to stop the train. Little did they know the train would take out the truck and any runners nearby as well...