Trains cancelled over fake bridge collapse image

> "It's more the fact that Network Rail will have had to mobilise a team to go and check the bridge which could impact their work for days."

Im way more concerned of this statement than whatever is reported in the title.

How fragile is a society that is unable to make a simple visual confirmation of a statement without having a multiday multi-££ impact?

I think it's reasonable to expect that the staff involved in an emergency callout of this sort will be entitled to Time Off In Lieu, and that that TOIL will cause knock-on effects to staff rostering.

Delaying the inspection until working hours would have caused much greater disruption. Having a track inspection team on hand 24x7 to cover all potential routes would incur much higher staffing costs.

An on-call system backed by TOIL and accepting the risk of dealing with occasional re-rostering seems like a reasonable compromise to me.

You dont need specialized teams of people to testify that the photo on the right[0] is fabricated. Any police officer on duty could do that. You dont need people to say "the bridge is sound" just that the rumours are false.

Its like certain societies enjoy the rigidity they are in.

But i guess in a country where a "retweet" of the wrong opinion can get you in legal trouble it just easier to say that fabricating and propagating ai slop is also ilegal

[0] https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/5e92/live/bc1e9...

Network Rail deal with dozens of reports of earthworks failures, landslips, vehicle strikes, and other problems affecting bridges and viaducts every day. They have well-tested procedures in place to investigate them. In some locations, and at some times of day, those procedures involve on-call staff.

Sure, "just follow the process" is a lot less exciting than coming up with an ad-hoc response - but when you're dealing with safety-critical infrastructure at scale, it makes a lot more sense than cowboying it and hoping for the best.