Normally I would never encourage this behavior...

[Mark W]

But damn that's a gorgeous photo!

[Scottl]

Wow, that is amazing.  Camera was bolted to the car...

[jagged ben]

That's one of those Canadian double-stack cars.

[delamaize]

I'm hoping the photographer had permission to mount his camera to get the shot, and he wasn't hanging between the cars.

[3DTrains]

Must have been one of the crew - else, how would they retrieve their camera?

Cheers!
Marc - Riverside

[Mark W]

Unless it was specifically coordinated by the railroad, in which case I would assume the railroad would require annotating the image as such, I don't think even the crew would be authorized to stray from their regular duties on a moving train to hop back and take some pictures. 

Most likely, the photographer was a hitchhiker.

http://sobadsogood.com/2013/04/23/incredible-images-of-teenage-freight-train-hitchhikers-by-mike-brodie/

[kornellred]

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Awesome photo.  It made me wonder about how flanged wheels and axles come into being.  Not to hijack the thread, but take a look at this video.  Wow.

[3DTrains]

I don't think even the crew would be authorized to stray from their regular duties on a moving train to hop back and take some pictures.

Certainly, but that wouldn't keep a crew from mounting the camera to the car. I know of at least one BNSF engineer here in SoCA that attaches his GoPro to one of the locomotives for some HD hijinks.

Cheers!
Marc - Riverside

[nkalanaga]

I doubt that it was the case here, but as cheap as good-quality cameras are today, I can see a railroad doing it to study wheel-rail dynamics in the real world.  What better way to see how the stuff is actually working than to watch a video of it?  Even if the camera gets broken by a piece of ballast all they've lost is a cheap camera.