There is currently a photo circulating of a bizarrely deformed railway track. Many believe it is a fake - but the photo is real.
Admittedly, it looks quite strange how the rails lie in serpentine lines here. But the photo of the railway tracks is actually real.
This is about this photo, which is being shared more often at the moment:

The fact check
The photo is real. It has not been manipulated or otherwise falsified.
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Malcolm Teasdale KiwiRail employee , sent it Dave Petley magnitude 7.1 Canterbury earthquake in New Zealand in early September 2010 . Petley blogs for the American Geophysical Union and writes about this image:
The second picture is particularly interesting. Note that the rails show high deformation while the surrounding soil shows comparatively little. Also note how the large bend on the left side has pushed the ballast to the side and into the track ditch. This also happened on the right, but to a lesser extent. The right side bend closest to the camera pushed the ballast toward the camera.
My first hypothesis here (I'm not an expert on track deformation) to stimulate discussion is that the buckling may be the result of compression deformation over a wide zone. The compression on the very strong railway line was recorded when a weak point was identified, which led to a comparatively rapid deformation to form the main buckle on the left. This then concentrated the tension on both sides of the buckle, allowing the other (right) bends to form. Can anyone who knows more on this topic comment further?
[Translated with DeepL]
A few years later - in 2017 - this photo was found on Reddit - without any source information and various tabloid media used the photo.
Conclusion
It's amazing what conditions sometimes arise.
The photo is neither manipulated nor faked - it's just old and has been shared so often over the years that the origin of the image has been virtually forgotten.
But the source is KiwiRail and no matter how many times it is shared – these railway tracks are real.
You might also be interested in: This is how deepfakes are created
Additional sources: Gizmodo
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

