Loco Pilot with an umbrella is not from Kerala’s Vande Bharat Express

An old image of a loco pilot holding an umbrella inside a train running in Jharkhand is being shared as the newly inaugurated Vande Bharat Express in Kerala after reports of leakage in its executive coach.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Kerala’s first Vande Bharat Express in Thiruvananthapuram earlier this week. Following this, reports of water leakage surfaced in the executive coach of the new Vande Bharat Express hours after the inauguration. The leak took place because of a gap in the ceiling and repair work has been carried out according to news reports. 

In this backdrop, an image of a loco pilot holding an umbrella while working the panel to protect himself from gushing roof water began to circulate extensively. Many of those who posted the image said it showed the state of Kerala’s newly launched Vande Bharat Express. The photo is being shared with a caption, “MODI’s “VANDE BHARAT” is a disaster same like Modi. On the 1st day of inauguration rainwater started leaking from the roof of VB in Kerala. Picture speaks for itself”.

Twitter link| Archive link

Fact Check

By performing a simple reverse image search on the viral photo led us to an article published by Indiatimes in August 2017, which carried a tweet by journalist Sucheta Dalal. She questioned the safety of the train. The news report stated that the video was taken near Dhanbad, Jharkhand.

Taking a cue from here, we used relevant keywords to look for more details about the video.This led us to an article by Indian Express article published on 11 August 2017, which carried screenshots from the video.

According to the report the video was shot in a train in Jharkhand and carried a reply by the Ministry of Railways’ Twitter account. The Ministry said that they had enquired about the video and that it showed a “dead (non working) engine hauled by another engine in the front”. 

We also found a video report on Punjab Kesari Bihar/Jharkhand’s official Facebook page including the response from an official about the incident. The video, as per the report, was said to be recorded on 25July, 2017.

Meanwhile we searched for an image of a pilot cabin of Vande Bharat Express on the Railway Ministry’s official Twitter profile and we found it does not look similar to that of the viral image.

Salute to #Narishakti!

Smt. Surekha Yadav, Loco Pilot cruising the first female driven Vande Bharat train from CSMT, Mumbai to Solapur through the steepest Bhor Ghat between Mumbai & Pune in Maharashtra. pic.twitter.com/WWKiUIXYrx

— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) March 15, 2023

Conclusion- 

Fact Crescendo found that though reports of water leakage were reported in Kerala’s Vande Bharat Express, the viral photo is from a 2017 video shot in Jharkhand.