Level crossing

So what’s so special about a goods train crossing a level crossing?

When we were children traveling from Guwahati to Lucknow each year the good trains always filled the day with excitement as we brothers struggled to keep track of the carriages whizzing past us. Some how it was always easier for us to count when the trains were at a distance rather than on the adjoining track, but why ? ( and now imagine me scratching my head hoping to come up with a genius reasoning.)

Motion is something that we photographers just cant get away from, nearly everything we shoot moves. Notice how the motion blur in the photograph is more on the left and less on the right to the point that there is no blur in the train and it appears sharp.
Depending on the speed of the subject, the apparent angle it forms at the point to the parallel running thrugh the camera, its distance from the camera and the shutter speed on the camera this blur may increase or decrease.

Its one train so how can it be still at one end and moving at the other?