New Zeland earthquake twists railroad track. (Crazy pics)

[kvg]

An earthquake in New Zealand has left railway tracks twisted like spaghetti.

Photographers insist this image of a two mile stretch of track, near Christchurch, has not been digitally manipulated.

American Geophysical Union blogger, Dave Petley explained the damage to the line, which links Canterbury with the west coast of the South Island, following the 7.1 magnitude quake.

He said: "The compression on the very strong railway line was accommodated when a weak point was found, leading to a comparatively rapid deformation to form the main buckle on the left.

"This then concentrated stress on both sides of the buckle, allowing the other bends to form."

Repairs involved removing the crippled rails and replacing them with new rails about two metres shorter than the originals.

source: http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quir...railway_tracks

[Benny]

Bet that train conductor shit himself when he saw that coming up haha

[JAYMEZ]

Lol weird

[Jay911]

Saw that kind of thing in a National Geographic in the late 70s/early 80s.

My first thought is "100 chicane right entry"

[Tomaz]

Holy tits! Didn't expect that to happen.

[Jay911]

LOL at one of the comments on the news article: "We have this kind of traffic calming in my neighborhood too"

[spikerS]

those photos look chopped to me. Notice the blurring in the picture of the rocks around the sharp corners of the rails? why has the gravel not shifted out as well on both sides? look at the flattened grass beside the rails, why did that not shift as well. I really doubt those rails could bend that much without snapping. The barb wire fences don't appear to be affected...

I just don't believe this one.

[kvg]

Originally posted by Jay911


My first thought is "100 chicane right entry"

[tirebob]

I call fake photo...

if bthe tracks themselves moved that much, the ground around the tracks would have also moved more. The trails beside the tracks where the equipment is hasn't moved at all...

[roopi]

Originally posted by tirebob
I call fake photo...

if bthe tracks themselves moved that much, the ground around the tracks would have also moved more. The trails beside the tracks where the equipment is hasn't moved at all...

The gravel moved each spot where the tracks are moved out.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

don't know if I believe it though.

[Mar]

Nice. The telephone pole has a shadow that just....stops, then a big gap, then it continues again on the other side of the tracks.

[tirebob]

Originally posted by roopi


The gravel moved each spot where the tracks are moved out.

That's what I mean... The gravel looks moved, but the land around the gravel didn't... If the ground twisted enough to do that, it's not just gonna shift around the gravel but leave the ground alone...

[?????]

Originally posted by Mar
Nice. The telephone pole has a shadow that just....stops, then a big gap, then it continues again on the other side of the tracks.

Where is this shadow?

Originally posted by tirebob


That's what I mean... The gravel looks moved, but the land around the gravel didn't... If the ground twisted enough to do that, it's not just gonna shift around the gravel but leave the ground alone...

The ground didn't twist. Its compression on the rails (could have been 100kms away) that finally found a weak spot which buckled.

[kvg]

Originally posted by tirebob


That's what I mean... The gravel looks moved, but the land around the gravel didn't... If the ground twisted enough to do that, it's not just gonna shift around the gravel but leave the ground alone...

The track twisted due to compression not shaking. All the track shadows seem to line up.

[bituerbo]

I can tell because some of the pixels.

[tirebob]

Originally posted by kvg


The track twisted due to compression not shaking. All the track shadows seem to line up.

If the ground compressed there, it would have risen up... It wouldn't just stay flat and curvey. Dirt has to go somewhere. It not like only the bare surface would be affected... The surrounding area would be dramatically affected by something that could cause that...

[5t3v3]

So many people talking out of their asses in this thread calling this fake.

Anyways, here's an Australian news site with a picture of the same thing shot from above. Like kvg said above, the probable cause is that the track was compressed from both sides so that the railway twisted at the weak point.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/emotiona...904-14v65.html

[roopi]

Didn't anyone click the link and look at these pictures? It doesn't seem that uncommon. There are many other pictures out there via Google.

[Seth1968]

So the tracks somehow grew to accommodate the curves