Motorist Injured, Construction Equipment Destroyed at Dangerous, Unguarded Illinois Crossing
(Geneseo, Illinois – July 20, 2015)
The operator of a million dollar plus piece of self-propelled road construction equipment received a nasty surprise and wound up in a Quad Cities, IL hospital in stable condition after he attempted to operate a Caterpillar pan scraper across the dangerous and unguarded crossing of 1300 East Road and the IAIS RR in a rural area of Geneseo, IL around 8:00 A.M., CDT Monday morning, only to be struck by an Iowa Interstate freight train.
Joshua Pierce, 40, an employee of J & B Excavating Company of Geneseo, received undisclosed injuries in the collision between the expensive piece of road construction equipment and the train, one of three that Federal Railroad Administration documents show crossing that rail/road intersection daily at a maximum allowable speed of 40 mph.
Pierce was transported to Genesis Hospital where he was admitted in “stable” condition, according to his wife.
The IAIS/1300 East Road crossing is not equipped with any active warning devices, such as lights and gates, which would have likely prevented this collision.
The Iowa Interstate is a Class II Regional rail carrier, one of a number of domestic and international railroads owned by The Railroad Development Corporation of Pittsburgh, PA, and operates a main line over the route of the famed and former Rock Island Railroad between Chicago, IL and Omaha, NE, with a branch line to Peoria, IL.
