A photo is going viral on social media (here, here, and here), in which two locomotive engines can be seen with Lord Rama portrayed on them. One of the engines is claimed to be from the Vande Bharat train. Let’s verify the truth behind this photo in this article
Claim: The photo shows locomotive train engines with Lord Rama portrayed on them.
Fact: The viral photo is AI-generated and does not show real locomotives. It was originally posted by an Instagram user (@the_rail_pilot) on 26 May 2025, who mentioned that the photos were created using Artificial Intelligence. AI-detection tools also confirmed that the photo was AI-generated. Meanwhile, Indian Railways did paint a portrait of Lord Shri Ram on a real locomotive (WDP4D 40603) from the New Guwahati shed in March 2024; the engines in the viral photo are not real. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Upon careful examination of the viral photo, we noticed a watermark with the Instagram handle @the_rail_pilot. Conducting a Google keyword search led us to an Instagram account named the_rail_pilot, where the same train photo was posted on 26 May 2025. The caption of that post clarified that the photos were entirely generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
We found similar photos that were generated using AI on the same Instagram handle. These included photos of trains featuring Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, and others on this Instagram handle. All the posts carried the same description, stating that the photos were AI-generated.
To determine whether the photos were AI-generated, we analysed them using two AI-detection tools, Hive and Slight Engine. Both tools identified the photos as AI-generated, with detection confidence scores of 98.6% and 90%, respectively.
According to a Republic TV report published in March 2024, Indian Railways painted a portrait of Lord Shri Ram on a locomotive (WDP4D 40603) of the New Guwahati shed. Several social media users also shared videos of the same locomotive featuring Lord Ram (here, here).
In the past. the Indian Railways has also named several diesel locomotives after martyred Indian soldiers (here, here).
To sum up, these photos of locomotive train engines with Shri Ram portrayed on them are not real and were generated using AI.
