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TX, take a really good look at the two photos and notice the completely different paint schemes on the engines. Either someone came in and did a quick repaint between taking pictures, or these are TWO DIFFERENT ENGINES!

I find it highly unlikely that the left side of that engine has a paint scheme entirely mismatched to the right side. . . especially when the nose has the red, white, and blue bands centered and looking as if they are repeating on both sides.

A little research on Amtrak livery gives the answer: Amtrak engines are always painted symmetrically on both sides. The livery in the bottom photo is called "Chevron 7" and is in the process of being phased out. It is primarily being used for commuter trains of a different type than this train.

I think that is a replacement engine brought in to move this train to its destination after the "Flag Phase III" motif livery damaged engine we see in the top photo was removed as unserviceable.

The photo showing the engine in the bottom was taken hours later. The state of the crossing gate in this photo at this time cannot be dispositive of its State after the accident; they were already making repairs to the crossing in preparation to reopening the line and moving that minimally damaged train out of there. Nor do we, at this time, know how far the engine has moved the train itself in the process of removing the damaged engine or hooking up it’s replacement, These facts are unknown. However, looking at the top photo with what appears to be the damaged engine still connected to the passenger cars, I do not see the crossing at all. From that, we know the train was moved quite a bit before the second photo was taken.

My Friend, I believe we're saying exactly the same thing -- but, we are "talking past each other"!

Apparently I composed this response to your #532 -- while you were composing your #537...

It appears that our only point of departure is whether the trailing engine was running with the train at the time of the collision -- or whether it was brought in later as a "rescue" unit...

Well, I went thru the work of typing this in the wee hours of the morning -- so, here 'tis: '-)

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First of all, the train was traveling left-to-right in all of the photos posted here.

Second, The train DID have TWO (2) engines:

1) [Top photo] The "Lead" "traction" engine (#145) IN FRONT (that hit the truck): Red, White, Blue centered chevrons on nose {"Flag Phase III"} livery. It was significantly damaged on the left half of the front. And, it ended up a full train-length past the point of collision at the crossing.

2) [bottom photo] The "trailing" or "pusher" engine at the REAR of the consist: "Teal over White" {"Chevron 7"} livery. AFAIK it was undamaged. It came to a stop near or in the crossing.

As I stated in #479, the rear engine later reversed direction and pulled the consist (probably minus the damaged #145 engine) -- back to Charlottesville.

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G'night, Friend! I'm headed for the bed at 5:20Am, my time...

Those are definitely not the same train.

One possibility .... Do you have the original link/source where those photos were posted? I am not discounting the possibility that the media/libs are trying to pull something here, but often the media use “stock photos” when they don’t have an actual photo of an event. Could this be what happened? Maybe they are just using a photo of some other train wreck so that they have a sensational photo to go with the article without having to go to the trouble of actually sending someone out to take a picture?

And no, I’m not defending the media or anyone involved in what I do believe is a conspiracy to murder Republican congressmen. Just suggesting a possibility for this one data point.