The BBC has admitted it went off the rails when it failed to highlight that it was using five-month-old footage in Trainspotting Live.
During the show, which aired on BBC4 on Monday night, host Peter Snow excitedly told viewers that there was live footage of a diesel locomotive travelling along a track.
“We’ve just seen one going past,” he said. “There we are, Class 66.”
However, eagle-eyed viewers spotted that the clip could not have been live and had in fact been posted on YouTube back in February.
The Sun first reported the story in a front-page splash headlined “Great train fibbery”, which continued on an inside page with the subhead “Rail fans signal fury at TV fakery”.
Here is tomorrow morning's front page. pic.twitter.com/FVB128USpN
— The Sun (@TheSun) July 12, 2016
A BBC spokeswoman said a “mistake” was made during the “excitement of a live broadcast”.
“It was made clear from the beginning of the programme that rail enthusiasts have been collecting and filming material over the last few weeks,” she said.
“The footage of the Class 66 was intended to show viewers what the live trainspotters were looking out for. It was not captioned as live on screen to viewers, but in the excitement of a live broadcast, it was mistakenly suggested that it was a live spot.”
Glyn Murray, from rail enthusiast website National Preservation, told the Sun that trainspotters are one group that cannot be tricked.
“One group you cannot con is trainspotters,” he said. “They notice all the nuance and are passionate about their hobby.”
