Fact Check: Picture taken out of context and linked with Vande Bharat Express train's punctured wheel
This is being shared against the backdrop of a recent incident, the New Delhi-Varanasi Vande Bharat Express was halted for a day due to a flat tyre.
Hyderabad: A picture of a worn-out train wheel is being shared on social media, with the caption: " For the first time in 75 years, a train wheel has suffered a puncture. Who are you giving the contract to, grandfather?" (Sic).
This is being shared against the backdrop of a recent incident, the New Delhi-Varanasi Vande Bharat Express was halted for a day due to a flat tyre.
Click here to view the post.
Fact check:
The claim is misleading. The image in the viral post is from a post graduate's thesis at Chalmers College of Technology in Sweden.
We ran a Google search on the internet to check for news stories about the Vande Bharat train having a punctured wheel and found a report by The Hindu.
"Varanasi-bound Vande Bharat suffers jammed wheels, flat tyre" reads the headline of the article. Further, it read, "The New Delhi-Varanasi Vande Bharat Express was taken out of operation on Saturday after it suffered a snag in a traction motor that jammed its wheels and damaged their perfect roundness, situation officials described as "flat tyre". The incident took place on October 8, 2022.
We also found other news articles on the same incident.
We ran a reverse image search and found the same image in a post graduate's thesis from Chalmers College of Technology in Sweden. It was published in 2012. This image is part of Chakra Damage – Concept and Damage Detection. When we translated the content, it explained about wheel damage and it's detection. Two common wheel damages in Sweden are wheel plate and roller contact fatigue cracks, also called crushing wear. A wheel plate can occur when the wheel for some reason loosens and is thus dragged against the rails so that parts of the wheel become flat.
The caption under the picture reads, A wheel with a wheel plate (Nielsen 2007)
Below is the comparison of the picture from the thesis and the viral image:
Hence, the claim is misleading. An unrelated picture is being linked to the Vande Bharat train puncture in the post. The image in the viral post is from a post graduate's thesis pursuing the course at Chalmers College of Technology in Sweden.