Wouldn't be difficult for badguys to fabricate these things.
Tough to say.
The normal consist of those trains apparently has a powered locomotive on the Southbound end and a Control Cab on the North end. (So that would be pulled on this trip.)
This train seems to have had a powered loco on the front (southbound) and an Amtrak P42 powered locomotive on the rear (for some reason).
So there are all sorts of combinations of motive power input to this train.
Hopefully they can query the data loggers.
They will be able to query the data loggers. I did some logger housing design work for one of the freight rail companies and the requirements were very robust.
In the better picture on this thread I could see the loco is the one that barrelled down the embankment and spread all of the debris so it was going left to right.
Must have looked like the scene from The Fugitive.
Wouldn't be difficult for badguys to fabricate these things.