Image of Bridge Construction Error?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

I see this stupid image on the internet all the time. I assume it is fake, but so many post/steal “stupid engineering mistakes” that it is everywhere.

Construction Fail #1

I am assuming it was created in a video game, perhaps?

How about this one?

Construction Fail #2 :dubious:

This one looks slightly more legit, but I cannon fathom why they would have connected the central beam/would not have noticed when they were putting up the forms for the concrete support. On the off chance it is real, anyone know what project it was? Is it an illusion, and their is a whole unbuilt segment in between?

#2

There’s no way that either of them are real.
Why would you have two supports that close together?

#3

This is just a modern update of an ancient gag:

2 railroads meeting - but the north rail of one side aligns with the south rail of the other. Yuk, yuk!

#4

p.s.: the ‘support’ of a bridge is called a ‘pier’.

#5

I never really gave those pictures a second thought. I always figured someone just caught them at an odd angle that made them look like they didn’t line up or it was photoshop, plain and simple (look at Example 2 where the beams are actually connected). I never noticed the piers being so close together.
Another thing that makes them fake is that even if something like this were to happen, not that it would, it would have been caught long before they were within feet of each other, you wouldn’t have 2 cars/pickups and couple of guys just standing around at the edge chatting next to some cones.
They rebuilt a bridge in my city over the last two years. One side, then the other, while always keeping one side open. No one got anywhere near the edge (on the construction side) with out safety equipment/harnesses.
Furthermore, not that you need a furthermore, the road wouldn’t be ‘finished’. That road has guardrails and lines painted on it. Come to think of it, I’d be willing to bet both of those pictures are 100% CG with the possible exception of pictures of people and vehicles dropped in because the person didn’t want to draw them. Everything else, in both pictures is either straight lines or texture.

#6

All I get when I click on the OP’s links are Google Image Search pages with the same set of lots of pics on both.

Which are the two the OP is talking about?

#7

Not just misaligned, but the support pillars are right next to each other! So clearly this bridge is both underengineered and overengineered.

Or it’s a fake picture.

#8

Let it finish loading and one will become embiggened, just like when you do a google image search and click on a picture.

#9

And the pics in question are 100% a computer-generated illustration. It isn’t a picture of anything but somebody’s idea of a gag. Or at least that’s what the google search is returning for me.

#10

That was the most obvious “tell” for me. I mean, not that I’d believe it’s real anyway but they don’t build roads with lane markers and guard rails as they go along.

#11

I’ve seen these before. It only takes a second to know they are fake. This will probably seem strange to some folks, but I google bridges all the time. I’m fascinated by many. Scooting on them brings me great joy.

#12

Thanks everyone! I was certain they were fake, but perhaps (needlessly) baffled by the stupidity of the internet for propagating them!

#13

Nope. Waited a good long while and nada. Just the same thumbnail sheet.

(BTW, it’s not a good idea in general to use Google search result URLs. Different people get different sets of results based on Google’s personalization algorithms. Just link to the actual thing instead.)

#14

Road construction gone Agile!

#15

When the Gateway Arch was built in St. Louis, everything was meticulously measured. Many times construction was stopped for remeasurement of the legs as they grew. It was done so precisely that the last section had to be lowered in place at just the right time of day as the legs expanded in the heat of the sunlight.

#16

Sorta…but misleading. The reason it had to be done at the right time was just to line up bolt holes or similar… After the pins/bolts/riverts are installed, or whatever the connection is , the bridge goes back to contracting and expanding much more than such precision implies.

Your large bridge or large building sits on rollers, for this reason.

#17

Some years ago a motorcycle manufacturer had their bikes and riders in their advertising on the Atlantic Ocean Road in Norway - some of the most scenic pavement available

https://www.google.com/search?q=atlantic+ocean+road+norway&client=safari&hl=en-us&prmd=imnv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwju57PQ46bKAhVT2WMKHaaNAMEQ_AUIBygB

I’d love to ride a motorcycle on that. Or at least drive a car.

#18

Also look at the trucks. They look like trucks for a commercial contractor, like the cable install guy, going to a residence.

Absolutely not bridge construction equipment.

#19

As I said back in post #9, all these pictures are computer-generated cartoons. Or at least that’s true for all the images Google deigned to show me.

How much photosleuthing can we do when the image is completely imaginary?

The “people” in the picture could just as easily be Gary Larsen’s talking bears and deer. Standing next to Star Wars landspeeders. While squid & toasters fly by overhead.

None of these are pix of real bridges. Not because bridge goofs never happen, but because they’re cartoons, not real pix.
True, they aren’t plausible cartoons of real events. They’re implausible cartoons of extremely implausible events, especially in the modern era.

#20

I used to work in the high-speed laser plotting business (we designed hardware and software that ran laser plotters faster than anyone else in the world). One interesting issue was getting toner to reliably adhere to mylar. There was an overpass in Phoenix (the I-10/I-17 interchange) that had a pier located in the wrong spot. When they figured it out (which took awhile), it was determined that the master print had a bit of toner flake off, which turned a measurement from 17 to 11. All the subsequent copies replicated the error, so it wasn’t caught until long after the pier was poured. It had to be demolished and moved to the correct spot.