I was driving through town and on the railroad overpass there was a NS merchandise train south bound with four locomotives on the head end. Third out was an LMX facing south. This is the most locomotives I have seen on a train pass through town. My guess is that I came east over the Horseshoe curve, as the other three directions do not have as steep grades.
It would help to know what town. Frequently traffic is greater in one direction requiring relocating power back to the other end. I saw an 19 engine consist on the Penn Central go through Middletown Ohio many years ago headed toward Cincinatti.
The train was headed south through Greencastle, PA on the Lurgan branch headed to the Hagerstown, Maryland yard which is about 5 miles south of me.
Traffic through Greencastle doesn't go through Altoona. There used to be a daily manifest that terminated in Conway and a daily that originated in Conway, but they're long gone. Everything moving through Greencastle is terminating in Enola or moving on to Northeast Pennsylvania.
Were they all working? Quite often we have some impressive looking engine consists. In reality, only one or two are on-line (producing power), the rest are just along for the ride. Except for our priority trains, all others are allowed to use just enough power to make it over the road.
Jeff