Besides looking like an idiot, what did Sean Guard accomplish for the 'Shoug as a result of his train sitting?

Nothing.

Not
One
Damned
Thing.

The information he came up with was readily available.  I get that Guard is a publicity hog.  I get that the democratian will do all they can to laud this moron for looking like a fool and wasting his time out there.

After all, the rag has spoken... as stupidly as they typically do... and even though there's not one damned thing Guard... or the rag, for that matter... can do about these trains, that's not going to stop them from trying to make this into some sort of big deal.

It isn't, of course, because like everything else in life, the only thing that matters is the outcome... and the outcome of this idiocy was foregone from the beginning: stupidity.

Everyone living in the Shoug knew that railroad tracks ran and run the length of that bucolic little dorf.

No one forces them to live there.  If they don't like it, they can feel free to move

That's the way it was before Guard's idiocy.  That's they way it is now.  And that's the way it's going to be, regardless of Guard's self-aggrandizement or the democratian's sniveling.