Is the lighting playing tricks?

[uhaul]

When I first saw these pictures I had to make sure this was the same locomotive. I am very surprised how faded the -8 in picture 1 is, but I noticed the trailing -9 is not washed out.
www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=152613
Now with picture 2 the unit does not look faded and the trailing -9 does not appear too dark.
www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=202740
So why is one photo would the unit be faded (washed out?), but then in a later one not appear faded?

[Raritan Express]

Do you think they would've washed and painted the loco in the 4 months in between the photos?

[uhaul]

They may have washed it, but if it were to be repainted it would be in NS black.

[MEC407]

Probably a combination of lighting and contrast. The second picture has extremely high contrast, which makes the paint look darker and more vivid than it really is. It's also possible that the photographer boosted the saturation in the second photograph, either in-camera or in Photoshop, which would make the blue look less faded.

[CSXT 700]

I just happened to walk into this.

Here is the origonal, photo.

While I did do some adjusting of the contrast, it was not much. I did do some lighting of the shadows, about 6 "points", and then about 4 "points" of contrast, to keep it from looking overexposed.