Question for Aspie Railfans

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Why is it that sometimes a train will be pulled by a few engines that are of the rival companies? Example: A train being pulled by a CSX and a Norfolk Southern engine or a train being pulled by a BNSF and a Union Pacific engine.

Either:

a) The train will be split at some future point with the loco at the front going one way and the loco at the back going another.

or

b) Two trains from distant points are going to the same destination. For safety reasons there has to be a fixed distance between two trains so joining them together fixes this problem.

I wanted to work on the railways when I was a kid, I know this stuff.

Ed Almos