I lived in a town that had some of the busiest crossing in the Norfolk and Western (at the time) system. Any parade or other similar thing was well coordinated with N&W;s dispatchers from the get go. Heck, even when main street was shut down for a street fair or some such, the dispatchers knew about and slowed the trains down even further so stragglers were less likely to get run over. Wonder why that did not happen.