Just a wild guess, Lee -
But the N&W cooperated closely with O. Winston Link during the final years of steam - when they would have already been running more & more diseasels - and MAY have timed the two trains deliberately for him. The photo as you describe it seems like too much of a coincidence to be unstaged - if not Link on the N&W, probably a P.R. shot by an in-house RR
photographer Phraud-O-Grapher®.
- El Abuelo Histœrico, Greengo y Curmudgeoño de los Locomoturas Viejos y Verdes,
aka Der Grossväterlich DünkelOlivGrünDampfKesselMantelLiebHabender