A seven hour trainride in HD

Sometimes you take the train to get from point A to point B. Sometimes you just sit watching it on TV for seven hours. It’s a mad idea, I know. But it’s a fascinating one.

On Friday November 27th NRK2 (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) broadcasted the seven hour trainride with Bergensbanen, from Bergen to Oslo. 1.2 million people watched part of this documentary, that’s 25% of the Norwegian population (we’re only 4.8 million inhabitants). The reason to broadcast this trip, was to celebrate Bergensbanen’s 100th anniversary.

I watched the last two hours of the documentary, and it was very fascinating. With all the people following #Bergensbanen on Twitter, it was a great social event. It may sound strange, but this is TV at its best.

The documentary have already had one rerun and a new is schedules during the Christmas holiday. That’ no all. You can download it from NRKbeta.no (or directly from this link). It’s a 22GB file in HD (720p) showing the front camera of the train. It also have a Share alike Creative Commons lisence.

It’s only one thing to say about this: It’s an amazing watch!

The clip under show Finse, where part of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back where shot.